Dizzy December Days
by opens up 4 nobody
Summary: Twenty-five glorious days in the life of Zoro and Sanji leading up to Christmas. One chapter per day, each a thousand words or more.
1. Such a Merry Month

It was quite early on the first of December. The month of Christmas and it started on a Monday. Well, other holidays were happening as well but Christmas always seemed to dominate above all of the others. It was a little bit sad that the other holidays got overshadowed but that's just how things work out sometimes.

Sanji was humming to himself as he stepped out of his car and began his walk to work. It seemed to be an especially cold winter this year, very snowy as well. The first snow had been before Thanksgiving, which wasn't what usually happened.

There was a fine powder of snow covering the sidewalk, that wouldn't last long. It would soon be trampled away by busy feet. He stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets in an effort to try to preserve some heat but felt that it wasn't really helping. Even though it was still dark outside the city was alive with cars and people walking to work.

Sanji considered lighting himself a cigarette but that would require him to take his hands out of his pockets, so he decided against it. Gathering his coat around himself, the blond made his way out of the parking garage. He hated parking garages, they made him nervous. He wasn't sure if it was all the empty rows of cars, or the echoing concrete, or that they just had an aura about them but he just didn't like them. They also had this weird post apocalyptic feel about them. He did hate them but he had to use one because he did not live in the city, he actually lived about forty minutes away from the city, outside some quiet little town on the edge of nowhere.

He was walking past shops now, they all had green and red decorations in their displays. Shops always seemed to put out decorations and advertisements way too early for Sanji's taste. He needed to actually be in December before he could get into it. And he really did love Christmas, it was his favorite holiday. Not because he was religious or anything, because he wasn't, he just liked it.

But as he made his way past the shops he was stuck by that conflicted feeling when he thought about how Christmas was really just a way for businesses to make a lot of money. All holidays were like that, really, but Christmas especially. It was some ancient religious holiday that had morphed itself into commercialized mess. With little toys made in countries where people had little in the way of safe working conditions or enough pay to get by. Along with the child labor practices. Of course all of thing made Sanji feel rather sad, but somehow he still really liked Christmas for some reason.

Ah, the pleasure of living in an first world, industrialized nation. It was really astounding to think of how different conditions were in some countries. It gave him that guilty feeling one gets when thinking about how selfish they are. If Sanji could figure out a way to feed every person in the entire world he would do it, even if he had to turn himself into a cooking robot. Sanji thought he would be an awesome robot, not having emotions would suck though... Or rather it wouldn't because he wouldn't be able to tell if it sucked or not because he wouldn't feel anything. What would that even feel like? Nothing, probably.

Sanji let out a content sigh as the Baratie came into sight. It looked a little odd next to all the other drab buildings in the little shopping center, but that's what made it catch people's eyes. He went in the back door to find that Zeff and a majority of the staff were already there.

What Sanji really liked about Christmas was spending Christmas Day with the people he was close to. When he was little that meant the Baratie staff. They had a big Christmas dinner every year. There was yelling, swearing, fighting, and Sanji loved every miserable second of it. At least he did looking back on it. It made him feel nostalgic thinking about all those hopeless idiots, but at the time it was the worst thing ever. Once he threatened to jump out a window if Zeff made him go downstairs and sit with everyone. That hadn't been related to hating everyone so much as the fact that the day before he had stayed up too late and in his drowsy state had somehow managed to smash his face on a doorknob, although hating everyone was still a contributing factor. The doorknob incident had left a large bruise on the his left cheek running up to his eye and his hair wouldn't cover all of it so he knew everyone would tease him about it. And they did after Zeff broke down the door and dragged him downstairs.

He did not usually go to this party anymore. Now he spent Christmas Eve with his boyfriend.. (Ugh, was weird to call him by that word or another term) or his friends and spent Christmas Day with his everyone. It was becoming a new tradition, one that he also loved. Luffy, Nami, Ussop, Brook, Robin, Franky, Chopper, and Zoro had become his new family and he was glad to make new traditions with them.

He and Zoro had been together nearly eight years. That is a long time to be together and they would consider getting married if, you know, it were legal. The state had an annoying amount of bans on gay marriage. No marriage, no civil unions, if you wanted a kid one parent could adopt it but they could not have joint responsibility for it.

It was stupid, and the conservative Governor who had run for reelection in November felt no need to change anything. Sanji was sick of seeing ads of his stupid face, he was an incumbent so it wasn't like he was in any danger of losing the vote. Sanji wasn't even sure who he was running against but he had hoped this guy would lose just as a punishment for putting his face on things Sanji happened to look at. He was of course sadly disappointed.

Really the only thing allowed was notification to the partner on the death certificate, which was depressing and only happened because of some big case the year before. And they didn't recognize out of state marriage either so what was the point in getting married?

Sanji withheld a groan, it would be nice to be married. They already owned a house together so it's not like there would be much if a change. Their little house on the edge of a little hick town was a nice place. Far enough away that they didn't have to look at the effects of a small gene pool and a lack of education. They obviously lived near their friends, in the same little neighborhood actually. It was a nice, quiet place until they all got together. Then it was loud and messy, just the way it was supposed to be.

Sanji smiled to himself as he started preparing for his work day. He was glad it was December again.

XxxX

A/N: I don't know how I feel about this thing and I don't know how you will feel about it either but it was fun to write. I basically just wrote a bunch of brain vomit out and it sort of happened. They aren't all Christmas related per say but they follow the line of everyday December/winter habits. Yeah...

Edit: In response to a rather scathing review saying I don't know my history (a remark leading me to spend the rest of the day obsessively watching documentaries because I'm a freak) I feel that I must say some things. Christmas was originally a series of religious pegan festivals which were gathered up and turned into a big festival by the Romans. This festival was called Saturnalia, which was like a week of lawlessness that horrified the early Christian church. To compete with Saturnalia the birth of Jesus was declared to be the 25th, the last day of the holiday. This is where the name Christmas comes from meaning Christ mass or the celebration of Christ. From there Christmas gathered traditions, becoming the modernized holiday we know today. I feel I have to be a bitch and say that any way you look at Christmas began as a religious holiday and the actual holiday of "Christmas" came about as the Christian celebration of the birth of their savior. So a bunch of festivals became a big festival which became a Christian holiday which became a commercialized mess.

Sorry, if I didn't get that out of my system I might have hurt myself. If anyone else can find any inaccuracies it would be much appreciated because now I'm paranoid and my confidence is at minus three billion : )

Thanks.


	2. Inconsiderate Idiots

Zoro groaned, it was too early to deal with morons. It was always too early to deal with morons because he started his shift at three AM. He was monitoring his area of the highway, being a State Highway Patrol officer, when some car had crashed into another one. He was the first to arrive on scene to the collision and it was apparent that the driver who had initiated the crash was intoxicated. He could smell the booze from there. Fucking idiot, must have thought himself a cunning bastard. What the fuck was wrong with drunk drivers? It's not just saying fuck you to your own safety but to the safety of others as well. The man was bleeding profusely from his head and Zoro called in the crash while he checked the other car to see who was in a more critical condition.

In this car there was a woman and a little girl in the backseat. When he opened the door he found that the woman was unconscious and trapped in the dented metal, shouldn't touch her until the medics got there. The girl looked alright but was panicking over her unconscious mom.

Zoro got the girl out of the car carefully, "Are you hurt?" Zoro asked her gently, checking her over to make sure she was uninjured.

"I'm okay," the girl whimpered, staring back at her unconscious mother.

"What's your name?"

"Rika. Are you going to help my mommy?" She asked pleadingly.

"Okay, Rika, we have to wait for the paramedics to get your mom out, but they'll be here soon," he could already hear the sirens in the distance, "I need you to stay here right now while I help the other driver, can you do that?"

Rika nodded, wiping the tears from her face and putting on a brave expression.

Zoro went to the other car and looked through the window at the bleeding man, who was now stirring. He opened the door quickly, unbuckled the guy and pulled him out of the car as the first emergencyvehicle pulled up. He was ushered out of the way by the paramedics after he had the guys identification. That would be useful.

Once the other officers were involved things started to get rolling, they worked as quickly as possible in the hopes of not blocking traffic for any longer than necessary. As the paramedics worked Rika's mother out of the car Zoro sat and talked with the little girl. Poor thing shouldn't have to go through something like this, especially not with Christmas coming up. She shouldn't have to deal with this ever, really. She was supposed to be happy, not a care in the world. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for her.

Zoro was never as into Christmas as most people, probably because he never celebrated it as a kid so there wasn't any magic in it. He did celibate o shogatsu, Japanese new year, when he was very young so it was still a holiday season.

When Rika's mother was finally pulled out half an hour later she was rushed to the hospital. Zoro drove Rika there in his patrol car so she wouldn't have to take a stressful ambulance ride. The hospital was not far form the station anyway.

In the hospital Zoro had to watch over her while her mom was in surgery. They were stuck there for three hours. Zoro let her play with his phone but other than that there wasn't much to do but wait. Rika was really a nice girl, she had quite possibly the greatest smile in the world. It was a shame she wasn't smiling now. It was at times like these where Zoro wished he had the power to move time, or bend it, or whatever. He imagined it was like bending a metal bar to make a little jump in time. Maybe he was thinking of A Wrinkle in Time, but that was like traveling through space or something.

When the doctors finally showed up they had good news. Her mom was going to be okay. She had lost a lot of blood, had severely broken her left leg (which was why she needed the surgery, so they could properly realign it), and needed a lot of stitches but she was okay. Although she would require time to heal.

After a short visit with her groggy mother Rika was sent off to spend her day with some family friends so her mother could rest. When Zoro dropped her off she was very grateful. She hugged him and wished him a marry Christmas before going inside.

Zoro hoped the rest of the Christmas season would go better for her. She seemed like a good kid. He returned to the station and started filling out his paper work. After that he left the office and drove home, exhausted. It was ten when he got off work, a lot of people were just getting up. The first thing he did when he go home was drag himself into the bedroom and sleep. He didn't wake up until Sanji was home at six.

"Time for dinner, marimo," came the cook's velvety voice.

Zoro groaned and sat up before the blond could kick him awake.

"Have you been asleep all day?" He had a disapproving tone.

"There was a crash this morning, I had to look after a little girl."

Sanji grimaced, "What happened?"

"A drunk driver hit a mom and her kid. No one was killed, but the mom was hurt pretty badly."

"Why are there so many fucking morons out there? It's infuriating. I'd like to go out and gut the idiot myself."

"I ask myself the same question everyday," Zoro said as he heaved himself up and followed Sanji to the dining room.

It was really a sad thing that everyone could not be happy, or in a good way, all the time. Sad things did not stop happening just because it was the holiday season, they just kept happening to people with no regard as to whether they are good or not. Random, at least seemingly random, things like this happened all the time. Zoro was just unfortunate enough to have a job where he had to see them.

Xxx

A/N: I know someone who's dad became a state highway parol officer, the police academy sounds awful and he had to work late at night like this. I'm fairly certain that they have to buzz their hair but I'm going to pretend that isn't a thing :P

Thanks.


	3. Soothing Sci-fi

Sanji walked up the driveway to Luffy's house, it was actually the house Luffy and Ace shared but Ace was out of town. Sanji was there because Luffy had set up a movie night. Everyone else was already there, so they were probably waiting for him.

Luffy always picked action or adventure movies, sometime scary movies. Sanji didn't really like action movies as in like action action movies where the husband/dad has his wife/daughter stolen from him like a piece of property. The plot was always the same, the explosions were nice but they lacked any real dimension. He didn't like scary movies either. Sanji was not one who enjoyed being scared, he didn't like jumps scares. Scary movies also have no depth, what with their bullshit exorcisms or whatever, they are a bunch of scary fluff. The characters always suck, they're always stupid, and it's just not good. Adventure movies, however, had potential so that was what he was hoping for.

By the time he was inside the popcorn was already popped and everyone was waiting in the living room, in front of the tv.

Luffy held up a DVD. "We are watching Star Terk: Into Darkness," he announced proudly."You know you could just watch it on Netflix, right?" Nami said, rolling her eyes.

Luffy pouted. "But Nami," he whined, "that takes all the fun out of it."

"Just put it in," Zoro grumbled, stuffing his face full of popcorn.

Sanji kicked him in the shin, "Why can't you eat like a civilized person?!" He yelled.

"God dammit, the only proper way to eat popcorn is by stuffing you fucking face!" Zoro argued.

Nami punched both of them in the head, "Shut up, both of you. The movie is starting." And things settled down.

The movie was actually pretty good. Sanji did not know much about Star Trek, because he wasn't a nerd, but this was pretty cool. Science fiction, action, aliens, all very good things. Everyone else seemed to like it as well.

Zoro was the only one who knew even a little about Star Trek, not because he liked it, he was bored and The Original Series happened to be on TV so he watched it, he had also seen Wrath of Kahn so he knew where this movie was coming from. The movie was good but there were some things he had issues with. Like the stupid fucking romance thing they had between Spock and Uhura, fucking bullshit, also no one fucking cares so get back to the action. He could seriously see Spock and Kirk as a better couple than those two. At least it would make sense, given their abnormal closeness in The Original Series. There was also the abhorrent scene where that Marcus lady served her only purpose by taking her clothes off. That is a ridiculous amount of sexism. Plus they had that prick, Benedict Cumberbatch, play Kahn. Zoro wasn't quite sure why he didn't like that guy but for some reason his stupid face rubbed him the wrong way. He didn't understand why people found him attractive. Ugh... Fuck it. Over all the movie was good.

Maybe science fiction just wasn't his thing, he really liked murder mysteries better. Like The Very Talented Mr Ripely, that movie kicked ass. Some creepy guy who gets involved with a bunch of murders, hell yes let the bodies pile up. The whole time you hope he will get away with it and that suspense is just amazing.

Aliens were always cool though, there was just something really awesome about them. There were a lot of crazy people out there who thought aliens really had been to earth but Zoro really didn't buy that. There was no way that their visits could be completely covered up.

Then there were those Area 51 nuts, who thought aliens crashed into an army test site in New Mexico. Zoro had actually seen a documentary from a year or more ago that had looked back on the incident. None of the initial sources were actually accurate according to the records at the base and Area 51 was a site where they tested new top secret planes.

Most likely what happened was that one of their tests had crashed and to cover up whatever new thing they were working on they released some thread along the line of UFOs. They probably hadn't suspected that it would be swept up in public attention. In trying to draw attention away they actually drew it closer and from there things spiraled out of control. No crazy aliens crashing were being brought in, although they had some test dummies that looked a little inhuman, no government conspiracies, no smoking man pulling the strings. Just a bit of a mistake.

It would be pretty awesome if aliens visited earth. Zoro would even be fine if they tried to enslave everyone if only he could see them. Besides, if they tried to take over he could just join the human liberation league which would surly arise. He would be a bad ass alien hunter.

Zoro was startled out of his thoughts when someone flicked his ear rings, making them chime obnoxiously in his ear.

"Oi, marimo, you look way to smug," Sanji drawled. He removed from Zoro his uneaten popcorn bowl and passed it to Luffy, who let out a cheer.

"Shut up, I was just imagining how awesome I would be if aliens invaded the world."

"They would defiantly kill you right away. You would just charge in and they would shoot you down." Sanji said bluntly.

Zoro shook his head, "No, that never happens to the hero in the movies."

"He has a point, Mr. Cook," Robin commented.

Sanji looked like he wanted to protest but it was Robin so he couldn't. "Yeah, well who made you the hero?"

"I did, and as the hero I command that you stop trying to contradict me or I'll have you decapitated."

"I thought you were a hero, not a King."

"I thought I told you to stop that."

"Both of you stop it," Nami said, rolling her eyes. "Sanji, go make more popcorn, we're watching another movie."

"Yes, my darling!" Sanji saluted and marched off toward the kitchen.

Moron, he's the one who would get shot down. Probably doing something stupid like protecting a "lady" who was actually just trying to manipulate him. Oh well, he supposed it couldn't be helped.

Xxx

A/N:I really don't like Ace, I reeeeeeally don't like him. He just feels so... Artificial, I guess. I don't know, maybe I'm just weird. I had to keep him away because otherwise I would have been like 'go fuck yourself Ace' the whole time.

I really like Star Trek (she said as she looked around her Star Trek filled room). It's the best. And I am super picky about my movies. Sorry to be such a nerd ^^

Thanks.


	4. Annoying Appointments

It was quite dark outside when Zoro woke up, he had the day off because he had to go to the eye doctor for a check up. Hewas up because Sanji woke him up, very much to his displeasure.

"What the fuck do you want?" Zoro groaned. This better be well fucking worth it.

"The car's stuck, help me push it out," Sanji responded with an irritated voice.

"How the fuck did you get it stuck?"

"The drive way is icy, asshole. Hurry up, I'm going to be late."

Zoro sighed, mourning the loss of his warm bed as he got up. He was going to walk right out when Sanji stopped him.

"What the hell are you doing? Go get a coat, moron, it's freezing out there."

Zoro groaned like a five year old but did as he was told, like a good boy.

Sanji was right, it was fucking freezing outside. Yesterday had been warm enough that a lot of snow had melted and frozen over night, leaving everything especially slick. Together they walked outside. Sanji took two steps and started to fall on the ice, Zoro stepped forward to catch him but also slipped and they were both knocked to the ground.

Sanji huffed, "Told you it was icy."

"Yeah, yeah, just get up. I want to go back to sleep."

Sanji got up and into the car, which was already running. When he tried to back out the wheels started spinning as they had dug themselves into gravel ruts. It really didn't take much to get them out, just a few shoves. Then again Zoro did sometimes seem to have superhuman strength.

"Thanks, muscle-head!" Sanji called through his window as he backed out. Zoro flipped him off as he drove away down the dark road. He cautiously made his way back inside and slept for another four hours.

When he found himself in the optometrist's office the only question he had was, why? Why did he have to go? His vision was fine, why did he have to have a check up? Probably because he hadn't gone in fucking forever but that was because the eye doctor's office pissed him off.

He had to wait in their tiny lobby for twenty minutes listening to shitty Christmas music before he was called up. Then he was taken through all the typical tests by some lady. The one with the dots of light where you had to click every time you saw one, every time he did it he accidentally pressed it at least one extra time. The one with the out of focus hot air balloon that you're always super suspicious of but it doesn't really do anything. That fucking one where they blow air in your eyes, can't they think up a better way of getting a reading for whatever it is that measures? And they one where they take a picture of your eye. They had to retake the last one four times because his eyes were half closed. Fuck flash photography, his eyes were always half closed, it made for very awkward school pictures.

Then he was taken to a different room where he had to wait an hour for the doctor to come in. What the fuck was he doing? He had at most one other patient, so where the fuck was he? The machines in his room were cool though, very steampunk.

The tests he did were only like ten minutes long he had to read all the letter on that little board and everything. And of course they had to dilate his eyes, because they seemed to always do that. Then they had to shine that bright as hell light around his eyes to see into the back of his eye. What they were looking for he did not know but they never found it, which he was grateful for.

They did all their stuff, gave him those stupid roll up sun glasses and sent him on his way. There was no way he would wear those fucking flimsy things, he would just tuff it out. He could take it.

At least he didn't have to spend an absurd amount on glasses, fuck were they expensive. Sanji had a pair that he tried to never wear because he thought they made him look dorky. They didn't, it was a little odd to see him wearing them but they just made him look different. They were square with black plastic frames. Instead he always just wore contacts. It was always amusing when he didn't get all the contact solution off and they made his eyes burn. Apparently he thought it was funny too because every time it happens he would start laughing like an idiot.

Zoro didn't get glasses fetishes, like seriously, what the fuck was up with them? Fucking weird.

So Zoro drove home, sufficiently pissed off with sensitive eyes. Fuck optometrists. He got progressively more sensitive to the light as he went. When he was home he received a text from Sanji saying something he couldn't read because everything up close looked to blurry.

He texted back:

"I care read acre fund hrs tuivjyeey"

It was supposed to say "I can't read anything it's too blurry" but it was difficult to type and autocorrect kept changing his words so half way through the sentence the decided it wasn't worth trying. He did send the message anyway because fuck it, why not?

Needless to say Sanji was very confused when he received this message. He had been asking if they still had iceream in the freezer because he couldn't for the life of him remember.

"Did they remove you brain at the eye doctor's? Do we have any ice cream?"

"Fuckyou. I vent see shut. They dilate dead my yews"

Sanji was pretty sure that was met to say that the doctor had dilated his eyes, which made sense because they always did that. He did not dwell on this fact long because Zeff walked in and told him to stop slacking off and get his ass in gear. He decided he would just get the ice cream on the way home regardless of whether or not they had any.

XxxX

A/N: Seriously, what's the deal with eye doctors?

Thanks.


	5. Awful Arachnids

Zoro was rather bored, he couldn't sleep so he was watching tv. Nothing good was ever on tv. He was watching animal planet, some thing on bugs, Sanji would hate it. Zoro used to like watching The Most Extreme, that show was great. The background music was cool too, sometimes he would hear it used on tv shows as creepy music. Anyway the program he was watching panned over to some kind of large hairy spider. That Sanji would defiantly hate. Spiders scared the pants off Sanji.

Sometimes they got spiders in the house, especially in the basement. There were the tiny spiders that you could hardly see and then there were the wolf spiders, which you could defiantly see. The wolf spiders were usually a little bit bigger than a quarter, maybe an inch and a half in diameter, counting legs. They ran around on the floor but they didn't do very much aside from make you jump when they suddenly moved when you didn't see them before that. Zoro never really killed them because fuck it, why bother? He didn't mind spiders, he secretly thought they were cool. Secretly because Sanji would strangle him with his own internal organs if he said that out loud.

He remembered once a while back he had been upstairs doing something when he heard a scream from the basement. He had obviously rushed down, not knowing what was wrong, and found Sanji in the downstairs bathroom balanced on a stool staring, horrified at a large wolf spider. To be fair it was pretty big, about palm sized, but it was just sitting there staring at the blond with it's six beady eyes.

As soon as Zoro was spotted Sanji immediately started screaming for him to kill it. Zoro shrugged, and marched forward to capture the thing under a cup when it moved forward toward them. This caused Sanji to press himself further against the wall, squealing like a 60s tv house wife. That was probably the fucking manliest Zoro had ever felt in whole god damn his life.

The spider was successfully captured, tossed out onto the sidewalk, and crushed beneath a boot. When the swordsman came back inside Sanji was still where he was left looking paler than usual.

"You alright," he had asked, poking him in the shoulder.

He let out a shaky sigh and grimaced, "I'm fucking fine, they're just so-" he shuddered.

"Don't worry, I vow protect you from the big scary spiders for as long as I live." He held up a hand in promise.

"You better, I will beat you up if you don't." Sanji leaned over to give the green haired man a kiss on the mouth. "And you will never tell anyone of this, yes?"

"Yeah, whatever you say, doll face."

Sanji kneed him in the gut, "Don't call me doll face, you fucking asshole."

Such a fond memory. It made him want to look up pictures of wolf spiders on the internet, so he did. Oddly enough they did sort of remind him of Sanji. They were fast moving, thin, spindly, long legged, and they did whatever the fuck they wanted. That included that cool thing spiders do when they walk over water, that is seriously some awesome shit.

Then there was that time the two of them had been trying to fix the hot water system. Zoro was trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with it while Sanji lectured him about how shit he was at mechanics and how they should just call Usopp or Franky. They had both been crouching down but Sanji stood up and that is when he saw it; a massive spider sitting very close to his foot.

Upon seeing the arachnid he proceeded to spaz out and kick it into the wall while he stumbled backward. To his absolute horror the spider erupted into a cloud of baby spiders who scurried away in different directions while their mother ran into a crack in the wall. It was pretty fucking revolting.

Sanji fell back against the freezer. His face was ashen and his breath came in short gasps, he was literally having a panic attack. Zoro had immediately rushed to his side.

"Oi Sanij, calm down, it's okay. They're gone, you're fine. Breathe." It took a few minutes to coax him out of his state of panic into shaky composure. After that Sanji avoided going into the basement for a while, he had one sever case of arachnophobia, but Zoro would crush a hundred trillion spiders for him. Ugh... Imagining a hundred trillion spiders crawling all over him was not something he wanted to do. Scorpions were way cooler anyway.

Zoro googled scorpions, yeah, they were totally awesome. They looked super threatening all the time and a bit like land lobsters which was always cool. Holy fuck they could get big, the bigger they got the less cool they looked. He liked the small scorpionsbetter, they just looked more interesting. Scorpions do that same horrible thing spiders do; they carry their babies around on their back. It's even more disgusting with scorpions because their babies are bright white so they look like horrible little maggots.

Maggots and things like maggots made Zoro want to gag but at the same time they were immensely interesting and he could not draw his eyes away. The way they wriggled and squirmed was revoltingly transfixing. It was the same way with parasites, they made him want to claw his skin off but he wanted to know everything about them.

Whatever the case Arachnids were amazing excluding the taxon Acari, which consists of ticks and mites. Amblypygids are the most interesting looking taxon, cave spiders and such. Think the thing in Harry Potter that Madeye used as an example in the Goblet of Fire. He was getting distracted by how awesome they were. Maybe he should have become a person who studies bugs, but they probably just did pest control stuff and farming. Fuck that he wanted all the creepy crawlies that would make Sanji pee his pants. That would be the life. Scaring the piss out of Sanji was where it's at.

XxxX

A/N: Spiders are awesome, right? I like horrible things too much.

Thanks.


	6. Sucky Sick Day

He was laying on a hospital bed in the middle of a stadium open to the stars, he looked around slowly but all the people were blurs. They moved quickly and whispered about him while he couldn't get up or move. He felt so strange, like the earth was shaking and his soul, if he had one, was leaving his body. It was like-

Sanji was jolted awake by a sudden wave of nausea. He felt it roll up his body, trying to expel the content of his stomach. Fuuuuuuck, this sucked. Sanji curled himself into a ball, shivering from the cold. He didn't want to try getting up yet, he was afraid he might puke. He laid there for what felt like hours, although it probably wasn't, listening to Zoro's breathing and trying to go back to sleep. He wanted to turn over and grab the marimo for warmth but he dared not move. It wasn't working, he couldn't sleep and after some time he decided that it would be wise to move into the bathroom before he could throw up all over the bed and himself.

He got some blankets from the closet and grabbed his pillow, without waking the sleeping moss head, and made a little bed in front of the toilet.

It was just like when he was little. He had a pretty good immune system as a kid but when he was sick he would have to sleep in front of the toilet like this in his old blue sleeping bag. Not that he threw up a lot as a kid because he really didn't, when he go sick it was usually a lot of heavy coughing and struggling to breathe, even before he started smoking.

Sanji spent his night in a half awake state of partial dreaming. It was a very strange place to be, he felt awake but maybe he was actually hallucinating. He did throw up once, successfully making it into the toilet. He leaned his warm head against the cool wall, he just wanted to press all of himself against it, it felt so nice. He stood to brush his teeth and the world tottered, it seemed that he could finally feel the earth turning on its axis he had to grab the wall in order to keep upright. Ugh, he gaged on his toothbrush as he scrubbed then he laid on his back, closing his eyes. He felt hot and cold at the same time, also he felt like he was being squeezed through a tube.

Zoro was a bit confused to find Sanji sleeping in the bathroom that morning but his half asleep brain quickly figured out what was going on, although not before he tripped over the bathroom heater and woke up the sick chef.

Sanji blinked blearily at Zoro, "W' time s'it?"

Zoro looked at his watch, "9:34. You alright?"

He nodded slowly, "Yeah, help me up."

"You sure?" Zoro stretched out a hand which Sanji used to slowly maneuver himself up.

"Yeah." His head spun dangerously and he leaned heavily for support.

"It would be easier if I just carried you." Zoro commented. Sanji made some noise of protest but Zoro chose to ignore up and pick him up anyway. Sanji head lolled onto Zoro's shoulder as he was transported, his hot forehead rested against Zoro's bare shoulder which felt oddly cool to him. The Japanese man set him down carefully on the living room couch then left to get him blankets, a barf bowl, and the thermometer.

"Do you want anything to eat?" Zoro asked.

Sanji grimaced but he knew he should eat something, "Just get me some crackers and a Popsicle."

Zoro nodded and did as he was told.

Sanji spent the rest of the day on the couch, half asleep watching tv. For some reason when he was sick he always wanted to watch that weird hunting channel, the fish shows transfixed him for some reason.

Zoro went around doing all the daily tasked that day, while he was taking a break he went to sit in the living room with the sick man. Sick people were pretty much the worst to hang out with, although it would probably be worse to hang out with dead people. All they could to was lay thereand smell bad, also possibly bleed.

"Oi, blondie. What do you want your last words to be?" Zoro suddenly asked.

Sanji glanced weakly at him. "What, thinking about offing me?"

"Not yet but I think when I do I should remind you to have awesome last words."

"Right. Well, it depends on how I'm dying."

"You've been stabbed in the stomach and you're bleeding out, I'm there trying to stop the bleeding, like a hero, but it's not working."

Sanji made a face, "How the fuck did this happen? Why did you pick such a gruesome death? Whatever. Okay, I'm bleeding out, there's rain falling for dramatic affect and I'm shivering. My last words are; Zoro, if I were I girl I would totally let you touch my boobs. Then I would lose consciousness and die."

"What the fuck?! Just- why? There are way cooler things you could say! That's not something appropriate for the situation."

"Shut up, I'm sick and it's the first thing I could think of! I know it's lame! What would you say in that situation then?" Sanji pouted.

Zoro shrugged, "I don't know, I'd probably just tell you how much I hate you."

"Wow, thanks a lot. Make me feel super guilty before you died. That's a dick move." Sanji rolled his eyes.

"Deal with it. I wouldn't care, I would be dead."

Sanji made a face, "I wish I were dead right now, I feel like shit."

"Just take a nap then."

"I can't, you're sitting there talking to me!"

"Fine, I'll leave then." Zoro stood up.

"Good, sweet dreams, dear marimo."

"Why are you wishing me sweet dreams when you're the one going to sleep?"

"Shut up, my brain is like melting out my eyes right now." And still sleep evaded him. Sanji tried to fall into a blissful darkness but was too uncomfortable to do so. Instead he watched the snow fall in flurries into the barren valley outside. He sighed, this would be a long day.

XxxX

A/N:Ugh, the puke bowl, I can't stand to use it for food but I cut ties with anything that's been thrown up on; dolls, sleeping bags, bean bags, blankets, general areas. Might as well burn them. In elementary school I avoided kids who thew up, and I still do. It's a bit of a phobia.

Thanks.


	7. Woeful War

Sunday morning Sanji and Zoro were both lazing about in the living room, flicking through channels. Sanji still felt pretty shitty but better than he did the day before.

The news and history channel were abuzz with the seventy-third anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Sanji liked history well enough but Zoro really liked it. He was secretly a bit of a history buff, god forbid anyone know that his head wasn't as empty as it looked.

Once a channel was settled old airplanes flew across the screen showing bombs being dropped on an island base. There were lots of interviews and film reals, that was the great thing about World War Two, they had lots of video.

Zoro tried to imagine what it would have been like to been there, in the base. It would probably suck pretty hard, the bombing started at like 7:48 AM so if you were asleep it would be a pretty rude awakening. They weren't really even expecting the attack or anything. It was probably a pretty big miscalculation on the part of japan; instead of scaring the United States they provoked them. Everyone knows that if you fuck with the United States you have to deal with some major shit afterward.

World War Two on the hole sucked major dick for just about everyone, so many dead people. Japan was going so hard with their invasion in china that the nazis where like "you need to calm the fuck down" not one wants to be so awful that the nazis have to come in and mediate, the nazis were like rounding people up to murder or work them to death in camps, the Allies and Axis were both bombing the shit out of civilians via aircrafts, and the soviets were losing people left right and center before they went in and fucking got back at Germany but murdering and raping people. It was defiantly not a good time to be a part of the Soviet army, when Stalingrad was being invaded by Germany everything was chaos and all those who retreated were shot down my fellow officers. Just watch Enemy at the Gates. That's just to name a few of the fucked up things that happened. It was all kind of bullshit, extreme nationalism and imperialism is bad for everyone.

Then after the war was all over the land is like torn to shit and the people are starving, with destroyed homes, sausages are made of human meat, there are dead people everywhere. All that cannibalism, it's a wonder they didn't all turn into windigos.

Being a soldier sounded awful but so did being a civilian in Europe. All those bombs, blackouts, bomb shelters and air raids. It always made him think of Peter Pan. He wasn't sure how he felt about Peter Pan actually, on one had he really wanted to say fuck Peter Pan for some reason and on the other it was kind of cool. Flying away to an awesome imaginary world, if you didn't think too much on how it seemed like the kids were actually dead and being taken from their homes. He also really liked the quote, "Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning." He couldn't really remember the actual movie though, just little parts.

For whatever reason he never liked Pete's little crew of kids or whatever they called themselves. Something about them just seemed really dodgy, Peter himself seemed really fucking dodgy. Anyone who constantly dressed in tights, stole kids from their homes, refused to grow up, and partook in especially dangerous endeavors was probably messed up in some capacity. Then therewas Tinkerbell, Disney really flew with her, fuck, pardon the pun. They ditched everyone else and rolled with Tinkerbell. Fair enough though, flying would be awesome, seriously.

Zoro tried to picture himself soaring through the sky while sword fighting in green tights. What a weird fucking image. Sanji was staring at him now, he must have been making a face.

"What are you thinking about?" The blond asked.

"Tinkerbell," Zoro responded bluntly.

"What the fuck? Why?"

"I don't know, I was thinking about Peter Pan."

"Oh, Peter Pan makes me think of Johnny Appleseed."

"Is it because of the 'pan' part of his name?"

"Maybe, shut up. I went to his grave once when I was little- Johnny Appleseed's I mean not Peter Pan's- or rather his estimated grave. He was buried by a river so he was probably swept down stream at some point."

"What did he even do?"

"I don't know, plant apple trees and be nice to people. I think he had something to do with churches too."

"Why is he so famous?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

"You went to his grave."

"I was like ten, I didn't actually give a shit about Johnny Appleseed. In fact I still don't and I refuse to answer anymore Johnny Appleseed questions on principal." Sanji crossed his arms defensively.

"I'm going to put apple seeds in your food and then you'll grow apple trees in your stomach."

"How old are you? That doesn't fucking work."

"Yes it does, how do you think I got green hair?"

"You got green hair from eating apple seeds?"

"No, I got green hair by eating a whole bag of grass seeds."

"Do you think if you ate strawberry seeds you would grow strawberries because I really want some right now."

Zoro wrinkled his nose. "I don't like strawberries, pick a different plant."

"What about an mango tree- or no, one solitary rose sticking out of the top of your head, you would look like some weird alien. You already look like some weird alien."

"I do not, my hair is perfectly normal."

"Right, sure marimo."

"At least my hair isn't the color of vanilla pudding."

"What the fuck? Why does my hair remind you of vanilla pudding?"

"It's yellow, it smells good, and I want to run my hands through it."

"I'll take that as a complement then, I guess."

"Do whatever you want, pudding head."

Sanji groaned, "If you start calling me that I swear to god I will obliterate your testicles with my foot."

Zoro smirked and turned back to watching airplanes drop bombs on people.

XxxX

A/N: Oh, I wrote a little story about Zoro, Sanji, and World War Two, you know, if you're interested- wait, I'm a self promoting? I am, aren't I? *shoots self*

Thanks.


	8. The Big C

It was a Monday morning, Zoro wasn't home yet. Sanji was staying home, he was feeling a lot better but he was going to wait a day before going back to work with people's food. Because Zoro was not home Sanji was watching House M.D. on Netflix. Zoro couldn't stand that show; he couldn't stand hospitals and he though the show was monotonous. Sanji agreed that it followed a formula but he enjoyed it anyway. He had already watched the whole series and the ending was amazing, probably the best end to a tv show ever, but he didn't know what else to watch.

Sanji watched Doctor house berate his fellow doctors and then proceed to solve the puzzle of what was wrong with the patient. It was never the common diseases like Lupus, never Lupus, it was always something weird and complex.

All those diseases out there, it was kind of terrifying if you thought about it. And like everyone gets cancer, cancer totally blows. It's like the new polio, or whatever disease it was that killed lots of people before. There was a whole marketing empire built on the awareness of cancer, what would happen if it was ever cured? A lot of people would be out of jobs. Why was breast cancer the most popular to be aware of? Was it because boobs are just funny to talk about? It shouldn't be called breast cancer awareness anymore because it's probably not possible to be anymore aware of it and like skin cancer is the most common kind so... What the fuck?

Getting cancer would defiantly put a damper on your life. Not even like terminal cancer, just normal cancer would be pretty shitty. First off it would be uncomfortable; a weird lump or tumor growing inside you. Then you go to the oncologist and they have to check you out, to judge if it was benign or malignant. Then they're all like "sorry, you have cancer" and cancer is like the c-word, it terrifies people so they're like "le gasp". Of course then they have to do surgery to remove the tumor which puts you out of work and into a lot of pain for a few weeks, depending on where it is. After the surgery you have to he chemotherapy.

Fuck chemotherapy, it's going to be one of those treatments where in the future they look back and are like "what the fuck!? They poisoned the whole body to get rid of a bunch of mutant cells!?". It's just the worst, you lose your hair at some point, you have to go to the hospital and get the chemo drip like once a week, it makes you feel sick, it fucks with your brain a little bit, and it generally just is fucking awful.

What would be worse would be the reactions of other people. Friends would obviously be upset and worried. Sanji hated to make people worry about him, that was not the sort of attention he wanted. It would be so uncomfortable, they wouldn't know how to act around you. Suddenly everyone would want to be your friend, just like after someone dies. They would want to be your friend and make you food. So much food. They would make sweet foods too and he'd be like "I can't even eat this, I have to have this anticancer food stuff. I bought a cookbook on it. Also I am a chef, I can't cook for myself. It's not like I spontaneously became quadriplegic." But he wouldn't say that, he would just smile and thank them all the while hating his body for doing this to him.

Then there was the hair loss thing. He could only imagine being a girl, it would totally make you stick out. Sanji very much liked his hair and he would be very upset if he had to get rid of it. Everyone would see his asymmetric face.

Sometimes it hurt his head to look at his face full on. He hated it as a kid so he grew out his hair to cover his eye. There after he was known as "that kid with the emo hair and bad temper" he combated the emo-ness by wearing bright, nice outfits.

He couldn't help that he loved to dress up, he just looked too damn good in a suit. However wearing a suit all the time took away from the splendor of a suit. Take for instance when Zoro wore a suit it was slightly- very shocking and he looked good so it was like a one two shot. Zoro did sort of looks like a gang member while he wore a suit when you really scrutinized him. It was probably the earrings that did it, or the ever present scowl on his face.

Unfortunately, Zoro did not share Sanji's love of dressing up, Sanji always had to force him into the outfit and fight to keep it on him. Zoro just didn't get why suits were so good, how they transformed an image. Zoro was perfectly content with his current image, thank you very much.

So yeah, cancer is a sucktastic disease- or series of mutations, whatever.

At that moment, in which Sanji was glaring up at the ceiling, Zoro walked inside in his uniform. He put away is gun and officer utility belt and walked into the living room.

"Feeling better?" He asked while he pulled off his shirt and left it on the floor, much to Sanji's annoyance.

"Yeah, I just didn't want to infect people or make the drive up just to have Zeff scream at me." He motioned for Zoro to come to the couch with him. The marimo followed the motion, they barely fit there together but it was close enough.

Sanji hummed, "Hey marimo, would you still love me if I were bald?"

"Cook, I don't care what the fuck you look like, just let me sleep," Zoro grumbled.

Sanji smiled in content. This was a happy moment, probably because he wasn't thinking about how he was going to get the wii remote to change episodes when it was more than an arms reach away. That could wait approximately 12 minutes.

XxxX

A/N: Hey, I'm allowed to talk cynicanly about cancer *glares at the back of mom's bald head*

Thanks.


	9. Don't Even Know

It was late and Sanji was getting sucked into reading scary stories. Why did they have to be so good? He loved the creepiness of them but he knew he shouldn't read them. They didn't give him nightmares or anything like that, in fact he very very rarely had any kind of nightmare. No, after reading scary stories he was just jumpy- or rather paranoid.

He knew of course that the it was all bullshit, ghosts and all that, but it didn't really help. He would be standing around and he would think he saw something move out of the corner of his eye and it would make that creeping fear come over him. The kind of fear where you are slightly terrified but your facial expression remans the same and you keep going with whatever you're doing.

Going up the stairs to the basement was the worst. The stairs were inclosed by walls and when you ran up them it felt like someone was chasing you. You would turn and nearly be able to see someone running up behind you but there was no one there. Terrifying. This was exactly why Sanji knew he shouldn't read scary stories but he couldn't help it, they were too fucking good.

It was then that he realized how dark the rest of the house was. He only had the light in the kitchen on and the light in the bedroom was casting an ominous light down the hall. He felt his stomach tighten. Remain calm, he thought, you're only imagining things. If I hadn't been reading scary stuff I wouldn't even be noticing this stuff. Relax, put the stories away and go to bed.

There was a crash from the bedroom followed by some loud swearing. Sanji nearly knocked over his chair when he almost jumped out of his skin. His heart hammered in his chest with a sudden burst of adrenalin. He walked slowly toward the bedroom so that he could kick Zoro in the head for scaring him.

When he walked into the room he didn't see or hear anything. For a secondhe thought that maybe he was in a scary movie and that Zoro really wasn't there, that he had never existed in the first place but no, Zoro was actually just on the floor in the closet.

Sanji glared at him, "What are you doing?" He asked in an accusatory voice.

Zoro was rubbing his head, when he pulled away his hand there was blood. "Fuck." He stated simply.

Sanji knelt down beside him and looked closely at his scalp. Just behind his hair line there was a small cut. It was big enough that there was a good deal of bleeding but not big enough to warrant stitches.

Sanji sighed and walked to the bathroom, getting a towel and wetting it. He made sure to grab one of the ugly maroon ones so he wouldn't ruin the good towels. When he was done he walked back into the bedroom to see Zoro sitting on the bed with blood trickling down his forehead looking at him expectantly. Sanji wiped the blood away and handed over the towel. Zoro was a big boy, he could stop his own bleeding.

"So how did you manage this?" Sanji asked, gesturing to his bleeding head.

Zoro stared uncomfortably down at the floor. "There was something on the top shelf so I went to see what it was and accidentally knocked off and onto my head."

Sanji pulled a face.

"It's not funny."

"You're right it's not," he said smugly, stifling a laugh, "So what did you knock on your head?"

"I don't know, like a boat. It's in there." He pointed to the open closet.

Sanji walked over and looked to the floor. There lay a little boat. The chef picked it up to get a closer look. It actually appeared to be a porcelain piggy band of Noah's Arc. It had a bunch of little animals on it and everything. Upon closer inspection one of the giraffes had broken off at the neck and was laying on the floor. Sanji brought the little boat into the room.

"You broke it with your hard head." Sanji stated, brandishing the broken giraffe.

Zoro groaned, "Yeah, but at what cost? What the fuck was it even doing up there?"

"I don't know, I don't remember putting it there and I don't remember seeing it before." Sanji pondered this little revelation deeply.

"Me neither, I only noticed it because I thought I saw a lady bug flying around the light and it flew up onto the shelf before I could kill it. Is there anything in it?"

Sanji shook the little piggy bank, there was a hollow jangling noise. "Yeah, like one penny probably."

"Open it."

Sanji pulled the plug from the bottom and turned it toward Zoro, who took it from his hands. He them dumped it over onto the flat lid of the little chest at the end of their bed. A few cobweb covered coins rolled out along with a little green army dude without any legs, and a few dead spiders but nothing other than that.

"Weird," Sanji said as he wrinkled his nose at the dead Arachnids.

Zoro agreed, he put the contents back inside and set it aside, "I guess it'll be forever a mystery."

"Great, now this is going to bother me forever," Sanji groaned, "Don't leaved the dead spiders there!"

"You throw them away."

"No! You're the one who dumped that thing out, so you have to throw them away." What stunning little kid logic that was.

"You're the one who wants them gone, I don't give a shit if they're there or not."

"Well, if I have to pick them I you are going to pay for it."

Zoro rolled his eyes, "Whatever you plan to do is noting I can't take."

They cleared at each other, trying to sense weakness in the other's resolve to not pick up a tiny dead spider.

"Has the bleeding stopped?" Zoro asked after a few minutes.

Sanji looked over at Zoro's head, "Yeah, I think so. Which means you have to put that towel away and you can take the spiders with you."

Zoro cursed, trying to think of a good argument against that but couldn't think of one so he stood up and headed toward the bathroom. On his way back he picked up the spiders and flung them in Sanji's general direction, although making sure to miss him by a mile; he wasn't cruel.

Sanji shrieked in a very undignified manner and scrambled under the covers.

"Well, I'm going to sleep now," Zoro yawned.

"I fucking hate you."

"I love you too."

XxxX

A/N: Man, who would be dumb enough to knock a piggy bank into their head? Ehehe... I was like seven, okay!

Thanks.


	10. Ups and Downs

Snow fell lightly outside under a gray dusk sky, it spiraled downward and was caught by a heavy wind causing interesting flutters from the roof. Zoro was out doing god knows what with Luffy while Sanji started on dinner. Sanji was feeling oddly energetic, the sort of energetic where you feel like running around but you don't have anything really to do. He had just gotten out of the shower and the fire was on in the living room so he just went to cook in a teeshirt, boxers, and ridiculously long socks. As such he ran and slid around on the hard wood for a while.

He got out all of his kitchen gadgets for use, then hooked his phone to the stereo and started blasting music. He twirled around the kitchen singing into a wooden spoon. He was a rock star. He slid and danced around as he put ingredients into the bowl.

"There's a hole in your logic,  
>You who know all the answers,<br>You claim science ain't magic,  
>And expect me to buy it<p>

"Goodbye Mr. A,  
>You promised you would love us, but you knew too much,<br>Goodbye Mr. A,  
>You had all the answers but no human touch,<br>Your life is subtraction,  
>Your number is up,<br>Your love is a fraction,  
>It's not any more<p>

"So busy showing me where I'm wrong,  
>You forgot to switch your feelings on,<br>So, so superior, are you not,  
>You love a little bit but you forgot-" Sanji sang but cut himself off as someone entered the house.<p>

"Ah, Mr. Cook, I was wondering if you could do something for me." Robin stepped inside.

Under normal circumstances Sanji would be mortified that Robin had walked in on him singing and dancing in his underwear but he was in such a good mood that he really couldn't give a toss.

"And what is it you need, my darling?" Sanji smiled warmly.

"Oh, I would just like to use some paper."

"Paper?" Sanji asked in confusion.

"Yes, I ran out of printer paper and I have some things I need to have printed."

Sanji shrugged, "Sure, hang on." He slid over to the cabinet beneath the printer and removed a stack of printer paper. "Here you are, my flower." He handed over the paper with a flourish.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Cook. I am very sorry I interrupted you," she said with an amused smile.

Sanji waved her goodbye saying, "You were no trouble at all, have a good night, Robin."

What an odd happening. Well, he mused, it really wasn't so odd. He ran out if printer paper sometimes too and then he would forget to buy it for about a month, so he would have to print things on card stock or neon paper that for some reason he had a lot of.

That aside he returned to cooking dinner. He had decided to make pancakes for dinner. Pancakes were always awesome. Sometimes when he was younger he would make pancakes on his own and dump on so many sprinkles that the pancake would look like they had huge blackened scars on them. They were so sweet, it was fucking delicious but Zeff would always scream at him for that. Sometimes he also made pancakes in the middle of the night when he was feeling especially unhappy but he tried not to do that.

Zoro arrived as the pancakes were being flipped onto a plate. They were devoured with much vigor. Zoro always just ate pancakes plain because he was boring and his taste was very anti-sweet, but Sanji loved to make his all fancy and sweet.

Pancakes made everything better, which was good because Sanji could feel his previous good mood rapidly draining away. His smiles started to feel more and more forced and all he wanted was to go to bed.

What he really wanted was a tiny plate of little baby pancakes, they would be adorable. For some reason things always taste better when they're tiny and cute.

On his way out of the kitchen from washing the dishes Sanji clipped his hip on the corner of the counter, which made him stumble into a chair, smashing his toes. Fucking god damn shitty counter, he always hit that corner when he was running around. It was weird though because no matter how unbelievingly hard he smashed into it his hip never bruised. He didn't really get how exactly bruising worked but it seemed weird.

A few hours later Sanji lay in bed by himself staring up at the ceiling, Zoro had yet to leave for work so it was before three. He couldn't sleep, his previous euphoria had warn off to leave a slightly cold and empty feeling behind. It seemed that there always had to be a trade off, you can't go up without coming back down. Sanji hated feeling like this, it made him want to just lay on his face and cry, or just stop existing altogether. He felt his face in the darkness; no change. His expression remained the same even though he felt likehe was crying inside, it made him feel detached from himself.

He continued to lay there as his mind conjured forth a storage of sweet sad songs, which mumbled on over the monotony of his maddening inner monologue, his forlorn soliloquy. Why was he really even upset? He didn't have any reason to be.

He tried to push the upsetting emotions down and think about happier things but it felt forced. Like trying to hold a boogie-board underwater, it kept slipping up. He didn't want to go to sleep like this, he would wake up depressed and it would ruin his day but at the same time he needed sleep. He weighed his options and decided to distract himself by reading random shit on his phone until he got too tired to move because this feeling made him want to claw his face off.

Half an hour later he was actually feeling better, not fantastic but better. That was when the pipes started making fucking creepy noises and he decided 'fuck that', buried himself beneath the covers, and fell asleep. Hopefully he would feel better in the morning.

XxxX

A/N: This is why I shouldn't write while I'm feeling down, this chapter sucks :P then again maybe you think it's okay, I don't know, no one has said anything. I can see you out there, I feel like I'm in the middle of an auditorium and everyone is staring at me but not saying anything. Ugh, I'm starting to ramble. I hate to ask for feedback, especially on such a shitty chapter, but... please?

Edit: I actually have one amazing review ^^

Also, Goodbye Mr. A is an awesome song by the Hoosiers.

Thanks.


	11. Succulent Soup

When Zoro walked inside the house smelled like fresh bread and soup. This was probably due to the fact that Sanji had made fresh bread and soup. At the moment Sanji was not actually in the house, he was driving Nami around because her car wouldn't start. Normally, Zoro would call him an idiot for that but Nami actually had some important things to do today. Although, for the sake of his brain he called the cook an idiot anyway. Fight the power.

While he waited for Sanji to get home he decided to take a nap by the fire. It was so nice and warm there. If he were a cat he would be purring, except he wouldn't because that would be super embarrassing.

He was awoken by Sanji shoving a bowl and some buttered bread in his face. The blond's face was red from the cold and he had the back of his hand pressed against his nose trying to get it to unfreeze.

"Done being Nami's chauffeur then?" Asked Zoro in a snarky voice, as Sanji pushed him out of the way so he could sit close to the fire.

"I don't appreciate the implication you're tone, shitty swordsman, I enjoy escorting Nami around. There is no need to be so much of an asshole. Shut up and eat your soup."

The soup was squash soup, it was an odd yellow-orange color and it was rather thick. Despite it's odd appearance it was absolutely amazing and had become something Zoro thought about when he thought of winter. He alway burnt his tongue on it, every single time. He just couldn't wait for it to cool down enough. The day after his tongue would always have that weird numb burnt tongue feeling. Numb with slightly swollen taste buds. He would always always take the time to inspect it in the mirror for a while.

"Why does it have to be so god damn cold in here?" Sanji groaned. Despite the warmth of the fire he was still shivering.

"Go put on a sweater or something," Zoro said dismissively as he slurped his soup and burnt his tongue. Son of a fucking bitch.

Sanji really did not want to get up and go back into their cold bedroom. It was actually probably the coldest room in the house but sacrifices must be made for the greater good so he got up to retrieve a sweater. He really did not have very many things that were used primarily for warmth, he aimed more for looks, not comfort. Plus he didn't like things that he had to pull over his head, they made his hair all staticky.

He did have one ugly Christmas sweater. He had bought it while shopping with Nami, she had told him that he had to have at least one horrible Christmas sweater, it was like a rule of the universe or something. Sanji hadn't really understood but he bought it anyway and it had been sitting in the closet ever since.

He tried to balance the pros and cons of putting it on. Pros: warmth, heat, and comfort. Cons: it was hideous and Zoro would defiantly mock him.

Fuck it, who cares? He slid on the jumper- sweater, he was not English and as an American it was his duty to call it a sweater. The blond slid back to the fire, making sure to drag his socks on the carpet, shocked Zoro in the cheek, and began to eat his soup.

"What the fuck is that sweater?" Zoro asked with a raised eyebrow as he rubbed his cheek.

"It's an ugly Christmas sweater. Everyone has to have one." Sanji stated confidently.

"Why?"

Sanji shrugged, "I don't know, Nami said so."

"Is it really that ugly?" Zoro was now analyzing the sweater. He had never been good at deciding whether things were ugly or not, he relied on others to make that judgement for him.

Sanji balked, "You really think it looks good?"

Zoro shook his head, "No. I don't know, I can't really tell. I'm not good at judging these things."

"That's why you should let me pick your cloths," Sanji sighed.

"Fuck that, my clothes are great," Zoro mocked offense.

Sanji groaned, "Don't even say that. It's such a terrible lie. The lier police will raid the house and beat you to death."

Zoro looked rather put off, "Okay, I get it. No need to be so hostile, geez."

"If I were being hostile your head would be stuck in the wall so tightly that they would have to chop off your head to get it out."

"Why wouldn't they just cut around my head?" The Japanese man asked.

Sanji narrowed his eyes, "Because fuck you, that's why. You would have to live your life without your head."

"Like the headless horseman, but I don't want a jack-o-lantern as a head. They smell awful when they're rotting." Zoro wrinkled his nose just thinking about it.

"Your head would forever be stuck in the wall and when we move out of this house the next people who own it will be confused as to why they hear screaming in the walls."

"Are you saying that even after I lost my head you would refuse to get it for me and then you would continue to live with my body? That's pretty fucked up. Also how is my head screaming without lungs?"

"I would curse it so that it could still scream, it would be annoying but worth it."

"You're like a witch who curses a house out of spite and bitterness all because I said my clothes were good."

"It is a perfectly justifiable reaction, I think. I could even stir my big soup bowl like a witch and cackle like a crazy person."

"You are a crazy person." The image of Sanji dressed up as a witch stirring a large bubbling caldron was strange but very amusing.

"You're right I am crazy. Quickly Zoro, save me from myself." Sanji paused, "There, you see, I'm not crazy."

"What?" Now the marimo was very confused.

"Catch twenty-two, I'm not crazy."

"What's catch twenty-two?"

"I very well may be crazy but in asking for help I have demonstrated rational thought so I'm not crazy."

"With that logic no one would ever get any psychological help."

"Exactly, it's a paradox thought up by Joseph Heller to describe any situation impossible to escape from due to contradictory conditions. Really, you should read the book Catch 22, it's amazing."

"I don't have time to read books."

"Then listen to audio books."

"Eh, not worth the effort."

"You're terrible, honestly, truly terrible and you should be shot in the streets."

Zoro grimaced, "You're so dark and dramatic today. What's up with that."

Sanji shrugged, "It just happens sometimes."

Zoro crammed the last bit of bread into his mouth and set down his bowl on the tile in front of the fire. He then shifted his weight so that he was leaning heavily on Sanji's side.

Sanji gave an irritated huff, "You're too heaving, I'm going to fall over. Just lay down if you really must all over me. Zoro complied, laying his head across the cooks legs. Sanji continued to eat, trying his best not to get crumbs on Zoro's stupid face. By the time he was done his back was starting to hurt from leaning against the back of the sofa behind him.

"Get up, you oaf," Sanji said, poking said oaf's cheek.

Zoro made an unhappy sound but moved his head regardless. Sanji took both of their dishes up and put them into the sink to do later. He was too tired to do anything now, the fire made him drowsy.

He walked back to the fire to find Zoro curled up like a cat again. When he tried to sit down he was grabbed by the ankle, pulled sideways, and grabbed around the midsection.

"I hate being the little spoon," the blond said darkly. Zoro merely pulled him closer.

Sanji made a sound like he was suffocating, "I'm going to overheat here, I'm stuck between a fire and a human furnace. You're going to wake up and I'll have burnt all of my skin off."

"Stop bitching and sleep," Zoro commanded.

"That only makes me want to complain more."

"I'll bite you," Zoro threatened, pressing his teeth against Sanji's exposed neck.

Sanji squirmed, "Don't do that, it makes me feel like you're going to drink my blood like a vampire or something."

"Don't tempt me, ero cook."

Sanji let out a sigh, falling into a very warm and comfortable sleep filled with vampires and bleeding snowmen. Best not to think too hard on that one.

XxxX

A/N: Squash soup is awesome.

Thanks.


	12. Holiday Hassle

Shopping, shopping, shopping. It was always a grueling experience for Zoro. All the people bustling about, chatting to one another with varying degrees of happiness. All the venders trying to sell you shit that you defiantly didn't want with their sharp, practiced smiles and lots of items that he could care less about.

He was at the mall near The Baratie with Sanji, Christmas shopping. He spent all year dreading this day. Shopping alone was terrible, shopping with Sanji was murder. He didn't even know why he had to come, Sanji just ended up buying all the gifts for him anyway. Zoro was dreadful at picking gifts, it was too difficult. For whatever reason shopping made his feet hurt worse than doing anything remotely active. He had to spend all day following Sanji around like a little kid. The cook had a habit of holding his hand in public to keep him from wandering off, which never happened by the way. Never ever.

Sanji was very good a shopping, he knew exactly what to look for and how to get there despite what Zoro said about him taking too long. All that complaining made him want to move even slower.

At two they went to The Baratie for a late lunch, despite all Sanji's arguing against going. Every time he went there with Zoro his coworkers would find some way to tease him, it was awful but not as awful as when Zeff and Zoro ganged up on him.

They strode through the doors swiftly; Zoro with confidence, Sanji with dread. Patty was there greeting customers, although the lunch rush was for the most part over.

"What are you doing here, brat?" Patty growled, he seemed confused at first when he saw Sanji, probably because he was supposed to have the day off.

"We're here to eat so take us to a table, unless your incompetence is too much for you," Sanji growled back.

Patty looked like he wanted to hit the blond but instead clenched his fists and put on a very annoying persona.

"Right this way," he said, walking them to an open table. When they were seated he handed them menus, something so ridiculously unnecessary that Sanji nearly laughed.

"Your waiter will be with you shortly," Patty said with a condescending smile as he walked away. Shortly after one of the waiters walked up and introduced himself. He was one of the many faces Sanji recognized and he seemed very uncomfortable with serving the Sous-chef and his boyfriend. Sanji actually felt slightly bad for him. Not needing any time to think about what to order, the waiter was immediately sent away after Sanji had ordered for the both of them.

Now the waiting. He hoped that no one would come talk to them.

"Do people eat capybaras?" Zoro mused with a bored expression.

"Huh?" Sanji was slightly startled by the sudden question.

"Capybaras, do people eat them?"

Sanji's brows knitted together, "I believe they do. Where do capybaras even live?"

"South America, I think. They are very strange looking, like a cross between a ground hog and a pig, or a beaver. They don't even look real. Just imagine a herd of capybaras running around in the wild. Do they even live in herds?"

"I don't know, my knowledge of capybaras is very limited. What would they taste like?"

"Who knows, why do people eat such strange things?"

"It's probably not strange for the people who live around them, but people eat lots of weird things. Like pufferfish, even though it's mostly poisonous. How many tries do you think it took to figure out the only good part?"

"Probably a lot."

"Or some people eat bugs. You could not pay me enough money to eat a bug." Sanji shuddered, "Some new mothers eat their placenta after they have their baby."

Zoro was horrified, "Why the fuck would anyone do that?"

Sanji shrugged, "Animals do it."

"Yeah, but animals eat lots of fucked up shit."

"It's supposed to be really nutritious," Sanji said helpfully.

"It's really disgusting is what it is."

It was then that Zeff decided to show up, interrupting a very stimulating conversation.

"What are you doing here, eggplant? You had the day off, that means I'm supposed to get a break from looking at your ugly mug." Zeff said, glaring down at Sanji.

"If you didn't want to see my face you could have stayed in the kitchen," Sanji said through gritted teeth.

"What was that, you ungrateful brat?"

"What lost your hearing already, old man?"

Before Zeff could kick Sanji's head in the uncomfortable waiter from before showed up with their food.

"Enjoy your meal," he said stiffly and scuttled away.

Scuttle is a funny word, thought Sanji, it made him think of The Little Mermaid. He seemed to remember a character with a name similar to that but he didn't really remember. Ugh, the French chef in that movie made him think of the people he had to work with everyday. He shook his head slightly, not the time for that, Zeff was still glaring at him and Zoro was grinning like a shark.

Sanji took a deep breath and put on a dark smile, "Listen, you old goat, it's my day off and I would like to have a nice meal without you being anywhere near me," he paused for a beat, "I say nice meal but I'm not working today, so I guess we'll see how nice it really is."

The two chefs stared each other down as Zoro watched in amusement, shoveling food into his face.

"Tsk," Zeff crossed his arms, Sanji was stunned that he was the first to fold, that didn't sit well with him. "Alright, fine, enjoy your day off, you little brat. I'll leave you alone but next time you're in for it." With one final glare he marched back into the kitchen.

Sanji sat back looking pale, "What just happen?" He asked, turning to Zoro for answers.

"I think he decided to let you enjoy your day."

"Why?," Sanji's gaze turned back toward the kitchen, "What do you think is wrong with him?"

"I'd say that maybe he was trying to be nice but I don't think that's true."

Thoroughly alarmed Sanji ate quickly and was paying the bill as soon as Zoro had finished eating. This incident threw off the rest of his day but he did get all of his (and Zoro's) shopping done.

XxxX

A/N: I hate shopping, it's the worst.

Thanks.


	13. Mindless Mush

The temperature had dropped dramatically overnight. It was so god damn cold out that Sanji didn't even want to go into the garage to get things out of the cooler. Every time he went out there he came back in shaking like a leaf. It was actually colder in the garage than it was outside. If he stayed out long enough his lips would turn purple. That's what happens when you have like zero body fat. Zoro was a different story, the guy was like a human furnace. It was amazing.

So when Sanji went out to get something from the car he made sure his hands were good and cold, when he came inside he snuck up behind the marimo, sticking his cold hands up the back of his shirt. Zoro nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Shit!" He exclaimed, turning on the spot, dropping his phone onto the carpet, "Why the fuck are your hands so cold?"

Sanji was laughing like a maniac, "I was outside, dumbass." He stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of Zoro's neck.

Zoro shuddered, and brushed his hands aside, "Don't do that, you're too fucking cold. You have ice sickle fingers," he said grabbing Sanji's hands and pressing them between his very warm hands and softly blowing warm air onto them. Eventually his hands did thaw out, at which point he was released and went to the kitchen to make hot chocolate.

Sanji loved hot chocolate but Zoro did not. Zoro though hot chocolate tasted like warm chocolate milk and that was gross. So instead of hot chocolate Zoro got some booze, fucking alcoholic. If he didn't die of like fucking some liver disease it would be a miracle. Dammit, all the alcohol related diseases he could think of had to do with livers.

While he sipped his hot chocolate Sanji looked up alcohol related diseases on his phone. Cancer, liver disease, pregnancy, brain damage- wait, back up. That's not right, you cannot get pregnant from drinking alcohol. That would be... Would less people drink if there was a risk that they would spontaneously become pregnant? It was a good question Sanji thought to himself.

"Oi, moss head, would you still drink like a fish if there were a chance that you would spontaneously become pregnant from alcohol?"

"Would you still smoke like a chimney if there was a chance one of those cancer sticks was dynamite?"

Sanji frowned, stirring his mug, "That's not an accurate comparison. You're only getting pregnant, not exploding. But what are my odds in this scenario? You know, hypothetically."

"The number of dynamite cigs is the same as the number of people who die because of cigarette related diseases every day, so that's kind of a lot I guess. Like ten percent of deaths world wide."

"That's a pretty high percent."

"Yeah, well sixty three percent of dudes in china smoke."

"Where did you find that little fact?"

"An environmental science book from 2008."

"What?"

"Just answer the fucking question."

Sanji hummed, "Well, I guess I probably wouldn't have started in the first place if this were the case. Eh, if I saw someone explode I would probably stop but I'm not sure, I do love a good laugh in the face of death. But would you stop drinking?"

"Well, what are my odds then?"

"I guess the amount of alcohol related deaths per day, which gives you better chances than me."

"Yeah, but imagine getting pregnant and being a guy. You wouldn't know what the fuck was wrong with your body and it would be a lot of time in the hospital."

"Are you saying you wouldn't want to be pregnant?"

"Yeah, the idea makes my skin crawl. Some little horrible fetus parasite growing and moving around inside you. That sounds good to you?"

"It's not a parasite, it's like a little seed growing in a pea pod, and it's adorable when babies kick in their mommy's stomach."

"It's creepy and I hope I never have to feel it."

"Well thankfully neither of us can get pregnant. Unless there's something you're not telling me," Sanji smirked.

Zoro gave him the finger.

Sanji sighed, "As I suspected. So does that mean you would quit drinking?"

"Nah, I would probably just have to get a bunch of abortions," he said bluntly.

Sanji choked on his hot chocolate. "Zoro! Oh my god, that's horrible!" He sputtered in horror.

"What? You gotta do what you gotta do and the little bastards would have to go."

"That is quite possibly the worst thing you have ever said. There are deterrents against abortions in this state, I hear that if you're going to get an abortion the state makes you see an ultrasound of it first."

"I don't give a fuck, I'll do it anyway."

Sanji glared at him, "You are a fucking terrible person and I hope something shitty happens to you. I hope you get struck by a meteor in your fucking face."

Zoro rolled his eyes, "Whatever, you asked. Go back to drinking your gross hot chocolate."

"You made it go up my nose," Sanji complained, rubbing his weird feeling nose tenderly.

Zoro was silent for a moment, then he spoke up, "If someone were to come up to you right now and ask if they could clone you, what would you say?"

"Well, my instinctive response would be yes but in thinking about it I'm not sure. I think I would... But then imagine that they grow up and I'm like fifty while he is like twenty, that would freak me out seeing what I would look like as an old man."

"So is that a no?"

"Hm, it's not like it would be an exact copy of me. We would probably look about the same but as a clone he would probably be more sickly and weak, you know because it is a clone. Plus the environment in which he would grow up would be dramatically different, changing his personality by degrees. It would be interesting and in the end we would be different people. So, I would say yes," Sanji concluded confidently.

Zoro blinked, "I was going to say that I wouldn't like to be cloned but now I'm not sure anymore. I still don't think I would, I don't want someone with my genes running around all over the place without my supervision. Sort of like how I would hate to not know I had a kid somewhere out there."

"Don't even say that it makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it." Sanji groaned.

"So bastard children no, clones yes?"

"Yeah, that sounds good to me. Unless you want to have my bastard child, that would be cool."

"I just told you being pregnant sounds horrible, I just imaging it making a sloshy feeling when I walked."

Sanji wrinkled his nose, "That is revolting and I'm positive that it doesn't actually happen. At least I don't have to worry about any little bastard marimos running around, because you're never fucking touched a girl."  
>Zoro scoffed, "Like you know anything about girls, you fucking queer."<p>

"Zoro!" Sanji gasped in mock horror, "I am shocked and offended at your choice of words! Oh, how will I ever go on?" He whipped imaginary tears from his face.

"I'm sure you'll manage," said Zoro dryly.

Sanji pouted at the annoying response, "Ugh, just forget I said anything."

"Done," Zoro took a swig of alcohol and walked away.

"Moron," Sanji mumbled under his breath.

XxxX

A/N: This is the weird stuff I think about.

Thanks.


	14. Snowy Snow Snow Snow

At nine am there was someone was ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door. Who could it be but Luffy, decked out in full snow gear. Outside there was about a foot of snow covering just about everything.

"Sanji!" Luffy shouted as soon as the door was opened, "You have to come outside and play, bring Zoro with you!"

Sanji debated whether he should kick the kid over, he looked like a marshmallow man under all his snow gear, it would be very amusing. Instead he rubbed his face and said, "Alright, give us like five minutes."

They had both already finished breakfast, well, Zoro was still eating but still, and they didn't have anywhere to be.

"Come on, marimo, we're going to play in the snow with Luffy. Go get the snow stuff."

Approximately seven minutes later they were suited up and ready for action. The charged out of the house together and tacked Luffy into a pile of snow. By this time Chopper, Robin, and Usopp had shown up and the others were on their way. Sanji and Zoro had the best sledding hill after all. While they were waiting they decided to start on a snowman.

Chopper started it, he took a snowball and rolled it around until it was too heavy for him to push, then Zoro pushed it. When it was done it came to about waist height, and everyone else had shown up. The second was easier to push, but no one was able to lift it, aside form the moss head. When it became apparent that this snow man was turning into "Chopper and Zoro's snowman" everyone decided to make their own snowmen.

In the end they had a very strange looking bunch of snowpeople. Usopp made a very intricate mermaid, which looked very out of place in such a cold environment, Zoro and chopper made their giant snow man, Luffy made a two headed snow man, Franky made a snow man who had a rediculois amount of sticks sticking out of it and named it porcupine man, Brook made a "snow skeleton" which not one had thought possible, Robin and Nami made a classical snowman, and Sanji went for the classical snowman but got pissed off at it and kicked it over, then he put a face on it and made it look like it had been chopped in half.

They only admired their creations for a few short minutes before rushing off to sled. The hill was steep but not too steep and it was wide, perfect for many people. The crew loved to race down the hill trying to shove each other off the sleds. But they eventually grew bored of that and Sanji suggested that they hike down to the valley and sled down the steeper hills.

The hike was not a long one but it did involve a lot of stumbling and sliding. They walked quickly on the path, which slightly overgrown with dead pricker plants that tore at their clothes. Hidden under the snow was a set of wooden stairs which lead down to the bottom of a small waterfall. The stairs were old and decaying, they walked on them cautiously and tried to restrain Luffy from rushing down.

At the base of the water fall, which could hardly be described as such because it was little more than a trickle, the muddy water was frozen. Because the flow of water was so tiny it had carved a little hollow in the orange sandstone where it ran. In the summer it made a little gurgling noise but now it was frozen solid. They stopped briefly to watch Luffy climb onto the rotting picnic table, which promptly broke to pieces beneath him.

They crossed the frozen creek, climbed across the cliff side, and descended into the valley via sled. A few years previously the forest had been chopped up by loggers. Sanji and Zoro didn't actually own the land so they could only be quietly upset about it. Things were slowly growing back but it still looked rather empty and sad. They knew it was for fire safety reasons but it still sucked.

At the bottom of the valley the creek was wider and deeper (only about calf deep, if that), the area was flat and shaded in large pine trees. Luffy was first to arrive, he tossed aside his sled and slid around on the ice.

"Guys, you have to see this!" He shouted as he stomped around on the ice.

"We're coming, don't break the ice, moron!" Nami shouted at him.

As the creek came into sight it became apparent what Luffy was talking about. Under the ice there were little fish swimming against the current. It was incredible that they could even live in the stream under good conditions, let alone in the middle of winter. They admired the fish a while longer before running up the steep hill on the other side of the stream, the sleddingwas superb.

Everything was fine until someone, Usopp, decided to throw a snowball at the back of Luffy's head.

There was a beat of awkward silence before Nami cleared her throat, "Everyone for themselves," she announced, "If you're hit in the arm or leg you lose that appendage, if you're shot in the torso you're dead, no head shots. On the count of three. One. Two. Three!"

Everyone scattered to build up ammunition. The lack of big enough trees for cover made things difficult.

Everything was quiet. Sanji had built up a reserve of four good snowballs before setting out. Somewhere behind him he heard Brook shout. The first kill of the game, executed by Robin.

Things happened very quickly after that. Chopper jumped out and started lobbing snowballs at Robin but aimed too low, taking out both of her legs. Luffy started throwing snowballs at Franky, who was down by the creek making massive snowballs. Nami joined Robin in fighting back Chopper, whose right arm she took out. Sanji was about to join the fray when a snowball whizzed by his head, he turned to see Zoro charging forward with an armful of amo. He stopped and they stared at each other for a moment in a very western stand off sort of way before throwing themselves into battle.

As their battle raged on Chopper was taken out by Nami, who then executed the legless Robin, and went to fight Luffy, who had killed Franky. A few minutes later Zoro had lost a leg and Sanji his left arm when a snowball flew from somewhere behind Sanji and hit Zoro smack dab in the middle of his chest.

Zoro looked down at the snow imprint on his chest and as if it were a gaping wound he clutched his hand to it. He teetered for a moment before crumbling to the ground. Sanji stood over him, stunned at this turn of events. Zoro half opened his eyes as if to glance at the blond one last time.

"Sanji..." He mumbled softly, "I hate you so much."

Sanji's eyebrow twitched and he nailed the moss head in the stomach with a snowball, "You suck!" He shouted and stormed off to avenge Zoro's death anyway, ignoring the dead man's laughs.

Luffy and Nami were amongst the bodies of their fallen friends still fighting so it had to be Usopp who had made the kill, he was hiding somewhere in the trees sniping. A snowball flew through the air from the hand of Luffy and hit Nami in the side of the head.

"Luffy!" She screamed, "I said no head shots!" She punched him the head. While she was busy beating up Luffy a snowball hit her in the center of the back, making sure she was dead. Sanji tried to spot Usopp but saw nothing, he turned to see Luffy aiming a snowball at him.

He held up his hands in surrender, "Wait, Luffy, we have to take out Usopp-" he was cut off by a snowball to the gut as he let out a strangled death cry.

Not two seconds later Luffy was killed and Usopp was cheering. He was promptly pummeled with snow projectiles after that.

They spent about another hour down in the valley, then they decided to head up for lunch and warmth. The rest of the day was spent inside destroying Sanji and Zoro's nice, neat house. A good day altogether.

XxxX

A/N: I wish it were that snowy but I wrote this in October and I can't predict the weather.

Thanks.


	15. Dazzling Decorations

Snow lazily fell in large flakes as Sanji bustled around the house. He had putoff decorating the house for far too long and now he was paying the price. It just wasn't Christmas if the house wasn't decorated. He was slightly irritated that Zoro wouldn't help him out but it had been a rough day for him. There were two bad accident that he responded to. In the first everyone survived but the second caused the death of some guy, so Sanji decided to cut him some slack.

As far as decorations went Sanji didn't go too far like some people, Luffy, did. Luffy's house was covered in Christmas lawn decorations and lights. Sanji didn't do outdoor lights, aside from a wreath that went over the garage door. On the inside things were a little different. He had little winter themed things put in place to make things seem more seasonal, like little Santa gnome things that went over the tv and on the shelves. He wove a fake pine tree rope thing around the railing of the stairs, and then there was the tree.

The tree was fake for a few reasons. First, going out to find a tree sounded like a pain in the ass, this one he just had to drag up from the basement. Second, when he was little they had a fake tree. And third, Zoro was allergic to pine trees. He was allergic to pine tree pollen and mildly allergic to grass pollen, which was ironic because he was part plant himself.

In the living room Sanji set up the base of the tree and laid out all the branches in their piles by size. Each branch had a color label but some of the colorful tape had fallen off and it was hard to tell the difference. Once that was done he started hooking them on from the bottom up. Near the top he had to get a ladder to put things together. He then fluffed the tree and brought out the boxes of ornaments.

Ornaments were something Sanji really enjoyed when they had memories tied to them, therefor every time he went somewhere for conferences or vacations he bought an ornament and he had Zoro do the same. He was half way through putting them on when he realized that he hadn't put on the lights yet. Fucking hell.

He spent a good half hour trying to untangled the mess of wires, why hadn't he done a better job of putting them away last year? At least he remember to check and see if they worked before he put them up. The only ones that did were the multicolored ones, but they were the coolest so that was okay.

Dressing up the tree felt like putting designs on a cake or gussying up a girl for like a prom or something. Sanji sighed, ah girls, such pretty delicate creatures. He wouldn't want to be a girl but they were nice to look at. His past experience in cross dressing had taught him that girls did not have it easy. All that make up and shit, not that this applied to every girl but still... He did not enjoy cross dressings, he was forced into it by a freak. He was very glad that Zoro didn't have a weird fetish for that sort of thing because that would be the worst. Zoro liked him just the way he was.

He imagined that it must be rather disconcerting to be a girl growing up. To have your body spontaneously start rejecting your uterus. What kind of weird evolutionary advantage did that serve anyway? What was so wrong with the uterine lining that it has to be torn out once a month. Causing females pain once a month was a dick move by nature. He didn't know what it felt like but he was once told it was like having that weird feeling before you got sick, having weak legs, and having a horrible rolling pain in your bladder area. That was how Nami described it once while she was laying face down on the floor trying not to exist.

It's not like humans are the only ones who do it either. Having an unfixed female dog can be unfortunate. It's such a weird thing. Opossums have the closest cycle to humans, 28 days. Chimpanzees have a cycle of 35 days. And the reason he knew this was not quite as strange as one might assume. He was at the zoo looking at the monkeys and thinking about girls when the question appeared to him. "Do female monkeys have periods?" He imagined that if they did that those monkeys would have to be taken out of the public eye for that time because a caged monkey with the chance to smear things with blood seemed like a pretty scary thing.

Some of the things about their bodies were just strange. This included breasts as well. What purpose did they serve by being larger? It had nothing to do with milk production, so why did it become a thing to find attractive? And Sanji defiantly found it attractive but there were just some things he found more attractive...

Another hour later everything was perfect. He had all the lights in place, all the ornaments were perfect, the fancy string things were strewn about evenly.. But they didn't have a tree topper, every time he looked for one at the store none of them seemed to look right so they just didn't have one and that was okay with him.

He turned off the lights and watched the tree glow in the darkness. It was nice, it triggered nostalgia. Down the hall he heard slid his arms around the kick ass cook and placed a kiss on the side of his neck.

"Nice tree," he commented.

"Of course it is, no thanks to you." Sanji rolled his eyes and leaning back into the embrace.

Zoro hummed and they stood there together watching the twinkling lights for another few moments.

XxxX

It would be more atmospheric to read this at night by a fire, I think.

Thanks.


	16. Dumb Dorky Dinosaurs

Sanji got home from work late, the roads were backed up because of all the snow. It was very dark but the outside lights lit up the front yard. While he was walking inside he caught what looked like a person in his peripheral vision. Upon closer inspection he realized that it was actually just one of the snowmen they had built the day before. They all looked a bit creepy in the dark like that.

Suddenly an impulse smacked him in the face.

Instead of walking inside Sanji scooped up some snow from the unshoveled walkway and formed a large snowball with his gloved hands. He set it down delicately and formed two more snowballs, each smaller than the last. When he had them all he stacked them up and broke off some twigs from a bush for little arms. Voila, one mini snowman, in five minutes he had about thirty. He stood in the middle of his little army grinning.

Then he closed his eyes and imagined. A pandemic that turned people into zombies? Nah, too World War Z. King Kong? Nope, monkeys suck. Dinosaur? Yeah, that's it.

Sanji imagined that he was a dinosaur an Epanterias amplexus, at around forty feet long they were one of the largest land predators of the late Jurassic period. Really, Sanji was more of water monsters kind of dinosaur guy. Like the Plesiosauria, with it's long fins, and elongated mouth full of teeth. They were just more interesting to look at than an Epanterias amplexus, which looked sort of similar to a tyrannosaurs rex.

If he had to pick land dinosaurs he went for the smaller, slender dinosaurs like the Elaphrosaurus or those who hunted in packs like velociraptors. He had a soft spot for velociraptors. Although nothing beat the weird little creatures alive during the Cambrian explosions. There was nothing interesting for so long and then. Boom! A bunch of weird shit. Actually, it wasn't really fair to say there was nothing interesting before that because it was really all very interesting but not quite as strange as the Cambrian period.

But sadly none of his choice dinos would do, so he worked the Epanterias amplexus angle.

He closed his eyes and channeled his inner dinosaur on a rampage through a large city. The snow people around him became an army trying to neutralize him. He set a rock on the head of the one he decided was in command of the army.

The air smelled of smoke from the smoldering buildings, around him people screamed, and bullets wizzed through the air. They were all very afraid. As the army began it's assault Sanji charged forward, smashing the tiny people under his reptilian foot with a crunch. His only goals were to destroy and to bust heads with glutinous vigor.

The second wave started, the bullets merely bounced off his armored skin. Sanji kicked aside those frail bodies, they did not stand a chance. He stomped and kicked until there was no one left but the commander, who eyed him with bitter anger. He who had crushed all of his soldiers, who did not stop to negotiate, who would not rest until they were all dead. Sanji grinned, revealing his sharp, uneven teeth. He scooped the commander off the ground and tore him in two with his clawed hands as he let out a true dinosaur's loud roar; a roar which dissolved into a very human cackle.

Sanji the human stood for a moment, admiring the trampled snow soldiers around him, letting the remains of the dead general fall from his hands. He really hoped that none of the neighbors saw that. When he had gathered himself Sanji walked inside. Zoro was waiting for him in the kitchen with a smug look on his face.

Sanji halted, "What?" He asked defensively.

"Nothing," Zoro said with a little shake of his head.

"What?" Sanji demanded, as he watched that fucking smirk grow into a shit eating grin.

Zoro started laughing, "You're such a fucking dork. What the fuck were you doing?"

"How-"

"I could see you from the window, idiot."

Sanji's face was hot like the sun now. "Shut up, I was pretending to be a dinosaur."

Zoro howled with laughter, "How old are you again?"

"I said shut up!" A kick was aimed at Zoro's head, which he dodged.

"There is no need for that. It was really cute," he said with a smirk.

"That's it." Sanji stormed out of the room.

"Wait, come back! I'm serious!" He was betrayed but his inability to keep a straight face.

"Don't even talk to me, marimo." Sanji huffed, his mood was spoiled and now he didn't have time to make anything good for dinner. They would just have to settle for the frozen soup he had in the freezer. He was about to go and get it when Zoro grabbed him by the back of his shirt.

"Where do youthink you're going?" The seaweed head asked.

"To go get dinner from the freezer, unless you don't want to eat, in which case I would force you to eat." Sanji snapped at him.

"But you haven't even told me how your day was yet." Zoro teased, enclosing the chef in his stupid muscly arms.

"Fuck off! Let me go!" Sanji whined, struggling weakly.

The swordsman pressed an exaggerated kiss to his cheek, "So what kind of dinosaur were you?" He asked.

Sanji made a strangled sound in the back of his throat and wondered if he should just knock him over but instead blurted out, "Epanterias amplexus."

"I don't even know what the fuck that is," Zoro said in shock.

"Yeah, well I didn't expect you to," Sanji rolled his eyes, "It was a huge predator and I was killing many people."

Zoro frowned, "I thought you liked those shitty little pack dinosaurs."

"I do but I would have to split myself into little pieces to become those things," he said dismissively.

"I saw this one dinosaur with intensely long claws, that's my kind of dinosaur."

Sanji turned in Zoro's grip, "A Therizinosaurus?" He asked.

"I don't fucking know."

Sanji was suddenly very excited, this was a major discovery. The Therizinosaurus, or scythe lizard, lived in the late Cretaceous period. It was a thirty three foot bipedal reptile with a broad body, long neck, and probably a small head. Probably because no skull was ever found of one, thus there was no way to tell what it ate but like others in it's genus it probably was a herbivore. Regardless of what it ate, its most prominent attributes were it's massive three foot long claws on its three fingered hands. It was terrifying to look at. If Zoro were a dinosaur he would be this one. It coincidentally was found in Asia as well, Mongolia was a good distance from japan but still, it could have been in Africa.

Sanji started to giggle- laugh, not giggle, and he leaned forward to kiss the shitty swordsman who was giving him such a weird look.

"What?" He asked cluelessly.

Sanji just shook his head, "I love you even though you are a Therizinosaurus," he confessed.

Zoro rolled his eyes, "I don't know what the fuck that means but sure. You're such a dork, you know that?"

"No I'm not," Sanji smiled. He totally was.

XxxX

A/N: This may be my favorite chapter. I'm not going to lie, when I made the connection between Zoro and the Therizinosaurus I was super happy. You should definitely it look up.

Thanks.


	17. Terrible Traffic

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. Fourth day of the week according to the calendar but in Sanji's brain it was the third, so fuck you calendar. Bored, bored, Sanji was very bored. He was stuck in traffic while he was on his way home, thus he was stuck in his car thinking. A very dangerous thing to do, it could lead to some strange places.

Apparently Wednesday was the day of Mercury. What kind of logic that made Sanji didn't know since Mercury was the first planet in the solar system. Sanji had always liked Neptune the most, it was big, blue, and awesome. Plus, Neptune had it's super amazing moon Triton. And due to it's orbit, or rather due to Pluto's orbit the dwarf planet at times closer to the sun than the eighth planet.

It really bothered him that people refused to say that Pluto wasn't a planet. Just accept it people, it no longer falls under the category of planet, that doesn't mean it stopped existing. The rules for which we decided whether a planet is actually a planet are determined my people and the people have decided that Pluto is not a planet for the sake of convenience. Get over it.

Space was a rather interesting topic astronomy wise- not astrology wise. Fuck, he alway mixed those two up, they sounded so similar but there was a world of difference. That being one is and actual science and the other is not.

Horoscopes and astrology were such fucking bullshit and he was ashamed to know that he was a Pisces, the fish, the emotional and sensitive sign. He absolutely hated the little descriptions for the signs that were out there because the brain will draw links to people through the words and dismiss the things that don't fit; Infuriating! And he wasn't sensitive dammit!

Coincidentally, Zoro was a Scorpio, apparently very compatible with Pisces. Scorpio, the scorpion, the manipulative, aggressive, and dominate sign. The Pisces is apparently supposed to feel protected by the Scorpio's dominance, the idea of which made Sanji want to rip is face off. Mother fucker, no way in hell! He hated every but of it that correlated with his situation, especially the relationship part.

Ugh... Relationships looking at them from the outside no one would guess they were even a thing. They tended not to be super romantic, they had their moments. One of those moments stuck out in his head.

It was like the middle of the night and Zoro was actually slightly drunk, a very very rare occurrence. He was slumped over on the counter listening intently to Sanji tease him about something irrelevant. Sanji was halfway through his sentence when Zoro interrupted.

"Y'know, cook," he said with a smile, "you 'ave a voice like honey.I could listen 't ya for evah."

Sanji was slightly thrown by this remark along with the other various compliments that proceeded to get him laid. Such a nice night.

Anyway, it wasn't that romantic, the only reason he really remembered it very clearly was because of the voice like honey comment. When he heard those words he immediately thought of trying to speak but instead of words honey came oozing from him mouth. A little weird but he liked the imagery. It would be pretty terrifying to drown in honey, though.

In the world outside Sanji's head traffic inched forward slightly. Fuck, what the hell were they doing up there? His brain instantly jumped to theories of zombie attack. Zombies were so popular. Zombies really pissed Sanji off but at the same time he thought they were awesome. The problem was that he always thought in a realistic mind set so zombies made absolutely no sense whatsoever ever.

From a biological perspective no fucking way was it actually possible. Rigor mortis, enzymes that make you feel hunger, blood pumping, cellular respiration, ATP that creates energy to move you; none of it would actually work if you were dead. It also annoyed him that somehow zombies in the movies could somehow smell humans. Even if they were somehow still able to smell they wouldn't smell anything over the scent of their own rotting flesh; it's not a scent that people get used to.

From a spreading perspective zombies wouldn't even be that hard to handle if they were the slow type. Slow zombies have power in numbers and it would be unlikely that a large sum of people would be spontaneously infected, the threat would be easily neutralized. This was one of the many reasons he couldn't stand the walking dead. Somehow in that show everything went to shit in only a few days with slow moving zombies. The fuck? Fast moving zombies though... Just hope that they aren't fast moving because then you're well and truly fucked. Unless the have some bullshit weakness like not infecting sick people. Why would a disease not infect sick people? Sick people are more susceptible to disease and if this was the case a massive amount of people would be safe.

Despite all of that Sanji still thought zombies were fucking awesome. In the case of a zombie apocalypse he thought he would probably do pretty well. After the main bulk of people were dead then he would defiantly head west to like Wyoming or some other state with like forty people in it.

It would be pretty fucking depressing though. It was more of a thing where in theory it would be cool but in reality it would really, really suck.

And traffic was still stuck in place... Would it ever end? He couldn't take much more of himself, he would start bleeding from his eyes. People in the other lanes would look over to see that his head had exploded and traffic would be even more backed up as emergency vehicles swooped in like vultures to carry away his dead body. Oh, how macabre.

The macabre always made him think of poetry. Poetry was so lame, he didn't know how poets could become famous... Although, thinking about it he did enjoy a good rhyme and he did memories a nine minute long beat poem. Maybe he actually did like poetry even though it was lame and easy to write.

Presenting a poem by Sanji:

Being stuck in traffic fucking blows.  
>I'd rather drink my own blood from a rusty hose.<br>My brain is melting out my ears.  
>I had better start moving before my sanity disappears.<br>The radio never plays anything good.  
>I would rip it from the dashboard if I could.<br>My phone is dead.  
>I'm going to shoot myself in the head.<br>If I don't get out of here soon,  
>I'll scoop my eyes out with a spoon.<br>When I'm dead I want my gravestone to be a statue of me flipping off the rest of the world.  
>Because fuck you.<br>The end.

Yeah, poetry was lame but it made him happy. And oh, look, the cars were starting to move now. They must have sensed Sanji's totally, defiantly not shit poetry skills; a blessing from the gods. Sanji was glad he wouldn't be losing what was left of his sanity.

XxxX

A/N: I enjoy poetry. Also, I was thinking about it and I hope that everyday when I submit the chapters it's the right day wherever you are because it would bother me if it wasn't.

Thanks.


	18. Christmas Cliche

Sanji was laying on his back, the tv was on but he wasn't paying attention. He was too busy thinking about mistletoe. Mistletoe was weird, it was always a part of cheesy romantic Christmas stories but he had never actually seen one in real life. The only one he'd seen was the one from Harry Potter, when he's making out with Cho Chang. Ugh... Order of the Phoenix was worst of the series, not bad but not as good as the others.

Sanji decided that this lack of mistletoe knowledge bothered him enough to look it up. He pulled out his phone and searched for mistletoe. Apparently, because they are green all year ancient people thought they had healing power and associated it with fertility. Weird how ancient people did that, not really logical from where Sanji was sitting but whatever. If he were an ancient human he probably would not have trusted them if they just hung out all year as green things.

The more he looked at them the weirder they looked. There were pictures of mistletoe growing in dead trees, which he assumed that they had killed and they just looked strange. If he saw one in his everyday like he would probably have to do a double take, thinking it was actually a hornets nest.

Fuck hornets, and any other flying, stinging insect. They put him on edge, not like spiders, it was more of a "don't fuck with me and we'll be fine" sort of thing. They still made his skin crawl, especially when they were crawling around on their little hives. Wasps were the worst for that. Wasps were by far the most terrifying of the little bastards to look at all shiny, black, and horrible, they just looked evil. Their nests weren't as bad as hornet nests though. Unless you were talking about the largest wasps nest on record which is twenty two fucking feet long, inside an abandoned barn on some island. Holy shit, kill it with fire. The worst fucking part was that it wasn't all nice and neat, it was just haphazardly against a wall. Fucking hell.

But those were just wasps. The hornets were the real monsters. The Asian Giant Hornet is the largest of the little stinging fuckers, a subspecies of which (the Japanese Giant Hornet) Zoro had actually spent time around growing up in japan. They could grow about as long as your thumb and their stingers could be up to a quarter inch long. Imagine the last thing you saw before dying was a swarm of giant hornets or a huge wasps nest. A dark moving cloud of buzzing insects, crawling all over your body. Sometimes, when Sanji was little he felt like bugs were crawling over his body as he tried to sleep. Mostly they felt like ants but sometimes the felt like wasps or spiders. Then there was that time where the house was having an ant problem and he actually woke up covered in ants. He made Zeff get him new bed covers and move his bed to the other side of the room. He had problems sleeping after that.

Fuck, he was going to give himself nightmares.

Oh, right. Mistletoe. Happy thoughts.

Strangely enough mistletoe is actually a semi parasitic plant that steals nutrients from trees by growing roots into branches but can also preform photosynthesis. It has poisonous berries as well, a rather unfriendly sounding plant. Also like the most annoying parasite ever, the trees would be so annoyed if they could actually feel emotion. They could do fine on their own, producing enough glucose to keep on trucking, but no they have to suck nutrients off of other plants too.

There are two kinds of mistletoe: the kind commonly used for Christmas decoration which is native to North America in the west and on the east coast, and the European version. The kissing thing seemed to start in Greece and it was used for weddings.

Apparently, there was a way the kissing was supposed to go: The man is supposed to kiss the woman on the cheek and then remove on of the berries. When all the berries are gone the kissing ends. Sanji liked that idea, that way you could tell how many people had been in the same place as you before you had come through.

It was all a little bit weird but it gave Sanji an idea. Grabbing a sheet of printer paper Sanji found some colored pencils and drew a mistletoe. It wasn't spectacular but it wasn't very hard to draw either. When he was done the blond taped his work over the doorway. As he was scrutinizing it's levelness Zoro walked in, his face pink from the cold. The marimo blinked at Sanji like he wasn't expecting to see him there.

Sanji gave a grin as he stepped forward and pulled Zoro into a kiss. Sanji made sure to make it as wonderful as possible, guiding his tongue slowly and deliberately. Zoro hummed in appreciation, trying to back Sanji through the kitchen and down the hall. The kitchen was not for illicit affairs such as this, that had been made painfully obvious in several past encounters and Zoro would writhe in pleasure than in pain, so it wasn't worth the effort of resistance. After a few steps sanji made his escape, ducking away from Zoro and grabbing a pen from the counter. With said pen he crosses out one of the mistletoe's berries.

Zoro looked at the paper in confusion, "What the fuck is that?"

"It's a mistletoe," Sanji replied calmly, setting the pen back on the counter.

Zoro's brows furrowed, "I don't even think I've ever seen a mistletoe."

"I hadn't either, I had to look one up to draw it but I think it came out okay."

"Why did you cross one out?"

"You're supposed to take one off after you kiss under it."

"Really?"

"That's what the internet said so it must be true."

Zoro didn't understand why exactly Sanji wanted to hang a mistletoe above their door but he wasn't going to complain about it. Instead he just pulled the blond into another kiss.

Sanji avoided the marimo's advances, "Hey, we aren't under the magical plant anymore, asshole."

"Shut up. Don't care. You started this, curly brows. Don't complain."

"Yeah, fine, whatever. I was just trying to live up to Christmas traditions, shit head."

XxxX

A/N: Every Christmas story needs a cliche mistletoe chapter.

Thanks.


	19. Anthropological Apocalypse

Sanji was fired up. He wasn't on a physical war path in the way he usually was, he was just tired of people being fucking stupid. He sighed, it wasn't really fair to say they were stupid, theyjust lacked the information to make an educated judgement on the current situation. He couldn't really blame them really, to make that judgment you had to have some knowledge of chemistry and the drive to actually look up and understand what was going on.

He was talking about climate change. This happened every time there was a weirdly cold or early winter. The media figureheads would say something along the lines of "global warming!? Were freezing here!" or "Just another sign global warming is nothing to worry about." They didn't understand the science behind it and it was infuriating that they could get up there and say that before the country without being properly educated. He wished that there was an organization that just ran numbers and had no political affiliation, they should run this country, not a bunch of fuck heads who detest the word compromise.

People just didn't seem to understand that weather is the day-to-day variation in temperature, wind, pressure, humidity, and rain, while climate is the result of long term weather patterns on a region. People don't understand how climate change works because it is quite complicated.

So, light from the sun comes through the earth's atmosphere where it is absorbed and changed into heat energy which then radiates back into space. Greenhouse gasses absorb that heat before it leaves. Now, is a very good thing because without this insulation the earth would be a very cold place.

These greenhouse gases could be in the form of carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, ozone... Etc. all naturally occurring in the atmosphere. There have been other instances of global temperature change such as the mini ice age which was a period from 1400-1850 AD where the earth experienced global cooling. This change the earth is currently experiencing, however, is very much different because of arthropogenic (human) influence.

Carbon dioxide has the great capability to hold heat, which happens to be a big issue. Carbon is a very prevalent element on earth and it is held in areas called carbon sinks. These carbon sinks include large forests where carbon is held in the plant life and is also where carbon dioxide is changed into oxygen via photosynthesis. The ocean, and fossil fuels which are mostly carbon are that are burned and thus pick up two oxygen atoms to form carbon dioxide.

When this carbon dioxide leaves its carbon sink it shows up in the atmosphere where it hangs out and collects heat. As of 2008 the global temperature change was about .8 degrees Celsius, which may not seem like much but the difference between a period of global warming and global cooling is only 5 degrees. It is expected that a change of 3 degrees could raise sea levels 80 feet because of the melting glaciers. A change of 2 degrees is likely to cause irreversible melting and it may already be too late.

Then there is the ocean. The ocean being a huge carbon sink has greatly prevented the temperature from changing so rapidly, another reason why nonbelievers cry fowl. However, when the ocean takes in such a massive amount of carbon dioxide it causes the water to become more acidic, throwing off the delicate balance of homeostasis in its marine life. If things got very very bad the whole ocean circulation process could be thrown out of whack and everyone would be in deep shit.

It really didn't help that last winter had been so cold in the United States and that this year they had experienced a very early and long cold snap. In reality the last winter had been one of the warmest globally and this year had also broken records for being one of the warmest. People just needed to look at the number. For fuck sake the planet is sick and we aren't doing enough.

The really tragic thing was that despite all of this outrage Sanji couldn't bring himself out of his ambivalence enough to do something. He recycled, sure, but he didn't go out of his way to be environmentally sound. It was far too much effort, and there in lay the problem. People were far to comfortable to make such major change and fuck knows policy makers wouldn't unless forced to. Do they would all be happy for now, until everything started to fall apart.

All they could really do was hope that projections were wrong but that didn't really seem likely. Although, older people always said that it was a bunch of bullshit, that people panicked over things like this all the time. Wherever someone said this it made Sanji doubt himself and the science of climate change, but really when you look at the numbers how could it not be a thing? Sanji sighed, it was all very tragic. People could be so fickle sometimes.

At this moment Zoro chose to walk through the doorway to see Sanji scowling at the floor. Not a good sign. He was about to walk out when he was gazed upon with fury filled eyes.

"What do why want, shitty marimo?" Sanji growled, the force of his glare was nearly palpable.

"Nothing, what's wrong with you?" He asked, knowing hewould probably regret it.

Sanji's face took on a rather depressed tone. "People are trying to kill off your kind, moss head," he said dejectedly.

Zoro raised an eyebrow, "Meaning...?"

"All the lovely plant life out there like the marimo. The fuck is up with that? Why do people have to be so awful?" He deflated over the edge of the couch.

Zoro scowled, "You mean like deforestation and shit?"

"Yeah, also industrial expansion leading to a decrease in biodiversity. It's going to be sad when all the cool animals are gone."

"What the hell is biodiversity."

"It's variety of life in an ecosystem. It's pretty important, I'd say."

"Why?"

"Because is we have a variety of animals out there they might at some point become useful to us. You can find some pretty important chemicals in some pretty strange animals. There could be an animal out there with the cure for cancer and we might have already killed it. Also, even if a species isn't important or useful scientifically it is nice for aesthetic value at the very least," Sanji put his hand to his throbbing head, "Fuck, this is making my head hurt."

"Then stop thinking about it, idiot," Zoro oh so kindly suggested.

"I can't just stop thinking about it because it upsets me, if everyone did that we would live in a pretty shitty place. Besides, maybe if I get upset enough I might actually do something about it."

Zoro gave the blond a very confused look, "Alight... Well, good luck with that then." Then he left Sanji to nurse his aching head. Or rather he tried.

"Hold on, asshole. As my boyfriend it is your obligation to make me feel better," Sanji said in irritation.

"How the fuck do I do that?" Zoro didn't see why he had to fix this shit.

"I don't know! Tell me how pretty I am or something," Sanji said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You're gorgeous," Zoro said in monotone, "Can I go now?"

"Dammit, you're doing it wrong."

"You're the one who told me to do it."

"Fuck you."

"Now that's an idea I can get behind," Zoro smirked.

Sanji rolled his eyes. "Ahahahaha, you are hilarious. I want to me comforted, not bent over and fucked up the ass, pervert. Ugh, that's a pretty good analogy for what humanity is doing to the earth. Fuuuuuuck, I hate everything."

"Well, you know what always makes me feel better?" Zoro said, his grin a little too impish for anything good.

"What?" Sanji asked suspiciously.

"When you take all your clothes off."

Sanji smacked his face with the palm of his hand. He didn't say anything, he quickly pulled off his long sleeve shirt and launched himself at the grinning swordsman. Strangling someone was a lot more effort than he would have thought, especially when they were set on not dying. Funny that.

Their fighting quickly devolved into a really gay tickle fight with Sanji as the loser because Zoro was not at all ticklish. It was sort of sad really that he didn't know what it was like to laugh in a fit like that but Sanji was jealous. The blond squirmed and gasped until he was nearly gagging on his laughter. When Zoro finally relented Sanji laid sprawled on the carpet at a very awkward angle, feeling as if his soul had left his body. If it had the marimo had probably eaten it, that seemed like something he would do. At least he wasn't feeling depressed anymore... Wait. Fuck.

XxxX

A/N: I'm sorry I'm such a pretentious duck. It irritates me that I can't be 1000 percent sure this is a thing without that inkling of doubt.

Thanks.


	20. Gingerbread Guru

Sanji was baking like a baking machine... An oven? No, not like an oven, that didn't make any sense. He was baking like a hardcore baking robot. He was at Luffy's house baking sheets of gingerbread to make gingerbread houses. He wasn't actually baking yet, some people needed to have special cut outs for their over the top "houses". This process of building gingerbread houses usually took about all day and an ungodly amount of gingerbread.

Everyone was already over, they were all in the living room doing something loud while Sanji worked. He called them in one at a time to cut out their house moulds.

Three hours later, when everything was dry, construction began. Things very quickly devolved into a giant mess. Many many sorts of candy lay everywhere, all over the table, icing was smeared over everything, and the smashed gingerbread pieces started to pile up.

Luffy's house was make of only square pieces. He slathered in icing using only his hands and made it as tall as he possibly could. Inevitably it would fall, it always did, it was only a matter of time. Luffy always struggled with building gingerbread houses partially because he just wasn't very good at building things and partially because the whole time he was fighting the urge to eat everything. He constantly fed himself candy and usually made himself sick by the end of the day so Sanji had to monitor how much he ate.

Chopper made a little gingerbread hospital complete with marshmallow ambulances and a m&m helicopter pad. Not bad at all.

Nami made like a beach house, a bungalow. Her seashore was blue icing and grated gram crackers for sand. Her actual house was a little hut looking building with a round(ish) pointy roof.

Zoro built a gingerbread UFO, because why the fuck not? Usually his creations looked like shit but this year he actually tried to make it look decent and it didn't look so bad. The decorations still looked like they were done by a child but the structure itself looked nice and Zoro was quite proud of his effort.

Robin built a very Rapunzal looking tower, which she covered in icing vines. She made sure to dump candy into the inner structure before she put the top on because she knew that she would be giving it to Luffy after his met it's fate and collapsed onto the floor.

Brook made a shack and little graveyard, which looked more like a Halloween decoration than a Christmas one.

Sanji felt it was his duty to make a classical gingerbread house with lots of little intricate designs. He was rather good with icing and so his house came out looking like something out of a cooking catalog. He would have accepted nothing less.

Usopp and Franky were the ambitious ones. They worked together to design and build a gingerbread pirate ship. It was a beautiful and very well done piece of work, which they named Thousand Sunny. A ship fit for a hardy crew and a trip out to sea.

They obviously took the longest time so while they were finishing up everyone else went into the basement for some intense Lego playing. This may seem childish and probably below their age level but it was fun as fuck. Luffy owned a massive amount of Legos and one of the rooms had been completely converted to "the Lego room". It was an entire city some of the buildings were the kind that were bought from catalogs and some were made from the mind. Luffy usually needed help to put together an actual Lego set,he couldn't organize himself enough to get it done but the others were all too happy to help. It was funny how you could see who built what by their little areas, some were messy and some were neat. Lego world was a turbulent and and ever changing place. They mostly played with the pirate Legos and Luffy always played the captain.

They were called up to see the finished ship a while later, they stood admiring it and all the other pieces for a long while. They were beautiful in a chaotic sort of way. While they were admiring them Luffy's precarious tower started to sway. Everyone watched tensely as it teetered floor ward. Sanji kept forward in an attempt to preserve the food and ended up accomplishing his goal but covered in frosting.

Sanji closed his eyes and huffed, "Someone get me a plate," he demanded. A plate was handed to him via Franky, who was trying not to laugh. Sanji thanked him tensely and placed the gingerbread on the plate.

Luffy was pouting at the loss of his tower, "Why does this always happen?" He whined.

"Because you don't built it with any sort of structural integrity," Sanji shouted, trying to get the frosting off himself with a paper towel. It was on his nice shirt (although it wasn't one of his nicest because he thought something like this might happen but all of his shirts were nice so...), his arms, the right side of his face, and in his hair. Damn Luffy for using so much purple frosting, it would probably stain.

"You can have mine, captain." Said Robin kindly as she knew she would have to. Luffy gave a cheer while Sanji groaned.

"Dammit, I'm going to feel all sticky now," Sanji scrubbed harder at his hands.

"It's not all bad," said Zoro beside him.

Sanji glared at him, "Yeah? And how's that, marimo?"

Zoro moved quickly and licked some of the icing off the blond's cheek, "At least you taste alright."

Sanji scrubbed at cheek and made a horrible face, "Nooo, that's even worse than the icing! And you are lying, you don't even like icing, asshole. Get away from me!" Sanji tried to move away but Zoro dragged him closer, enclosing him in an inescapable grip.

"Nope, I think I'll stay right here," he said in a sickly sweet voice and kissed him on the cheek mockingly.

Sanji was pretty much dying now, he was trying to claw himself away while everyone was laughing at their antics. Fucking green haired bastard.

XxxX

A/N: I'd rather use gramcrackers instead of gingerbread, but that's just me. Also, I hope that by now you are all off for winter break : )

Thanks.


	21. Tedious Tangents

It was December 21, the winter solstice and a gloomy Sunday morning. Sanji was in that tiny town near home getting groceries. As he walked down the sidewalk he could hear the church bells ringing or maybe they were just recordings of church bells, he wasn't really sure. Maintaining a huge church bell sounded difficult, or maybe it was easy. Who knew?

This little town had about seven Churches within a few blocks. There was actually a place were you could see four churches around the corner from one another. Churches made Sanji very uncomfortable, they were just sort of creepy. People standing up and badly singing songs to the tune of a brilliant organ or piano player. Fuck guitars, he could listen to piano music all day. Piano players were much more interesting to watch too. He wondered briefly about which instrument was harder to play. The piano seemed like it would be harder, the organ was defiantly hardiest.

Such lovely music to such outdated lyrics. He remembered as a child being forced to going to a church once, not by Zeff but by some friend of his he scarcely remembered. While he was stuck there he flipped through the song book and looked at the dates of when the songs were written, some of them were over 400 years old. You would think they could make something better, but then again a lot of the congregation was filled with people who looked about 400 years old.

Some churches were okay, like the ones that were peaceful and accepting but then there were the doosies. Like the big church on the hill. Tons of people went there to listen to some prick go on and on about politics, and god's wrath, and a lot of conservative ideals. It was such a hit that they played the sermons over the radio on Sundays. It was one of those places were a normal person would walk in and be like "what the fuck?", the sort of place that goes "yeah, women should probably just never leave the kitchen", and the sort of place that bread unhappiness. Those were the places Sanji couldn't stand.

They brainwashed small children with developing brains using their hypnotic methods, like 'close your eyes and pray with me' it sounded suspiciously like 'close your eyes and listen only to the sound of my voice'. Yeah, churches were creepy.

What kind of place teaches people to hate other people. Well, that doesn't apply to every church, just the douchey ones, and the government could fall under that category as well. If you take that book written by a bunch of dirty, uneducated men living in the desert as the literal truth it can lead to some prettyradical ideas. Sexism, slavery, creationism, and homophobia. All terrible things. Sanji felt conflicted about calling creationism a terrible thing but it was sort of mind blowing that people believed it. Creationist made his head hurt and there was absolutely no way of swaying their belief. Evolution is a wonderful thing, it may be a theory but so is the theory of gravity.

Slavery was just totally evil, nothing more to be said about it. The bible was used to justify slavery which is pretty fucked up and horrible.

Sexism was another terrible thing. Sanji had been called sexist a few times but he stood by his ideas that he did not see females as beneath him, he just believed it was his purpose to make their life was carefree as possible. The idea that women had to stay home, had to look after the kids, had to make themselves pretty, had to keep quiet about their opinion, that they weren't smart enough... Yada yada yada... Was not an idea he found appealing, women should defiantly not be repressed.

And then the homophobia, so much homophobia. Sanji didn't really get how it was supposed to be a sin. Apparently god just said it was bad and didn't give any reasoning, which was kind of bullshit. What the fuck? It was ingrained into so many people it was sickening. In the last twenty years there had been a major series of steps in the right direction but it was still pretty shitty sometimes.

This sort homophobia could lead to some serious mental issues as well. If a person grows up in a homophobic environment but discover that they are gay it could be pretty stressful. It's not like it's a choice. Sanji knew that for a fact. When he was eighteen he met Zoro and they had a rough start. Lots of denial at first, then the frustration and panic, which lead to avoidance and more violent outbursts than usual, and then there was begrudging acceptance.

Luffy was actually the one to introduce them. At the time Sanji was in collage studying business and culinary arts and Zoro in the police academy. Luffy met Zoro when he was on his way to visit Nami and the marimo was lost. He of course would not admit he was lost and refused to ask for help, he just let Luffy drag him around. The straw hat wearing boy liked him so it was inevitable that he should meet Sanji.

They met outside a convenience store where Luffy had gone in to buy who knows what kind of shitty off brand snack. Not a very romantic meeting, but then they never really were an overly romantic couple. Sanji was a bit of a romantic but the marimo had the emotional range of a rock so he just had to suck it up sometimes.

Anyway, they started a fight right there in the parking lot and the store cashier threatened to call the police. Luffy found all of this absolutely hilarious so he brought the two together as often as he could. So they started hanging out with friends which somehow lead to them hanging out together by themselves. That is when things started to get into uncomfortable territory.

Sanji wasn't sure quite how it happened for Zoro but he found himself thinking about the idiot more than was necessary, every time he caught himself he would squish down any emotions involved. However, it didn't really help. There would be these weird intense moments of eye contact that made him forget what he was thinking about and sent his mind in a downward spiral toward something... Weird.

One night the two of them were sitting on a curb because they were waiting for Luffy so they could go see some stupid movie when there was another moment of intense eye contact and gravity seemed to malfunction, pulling them together. That is when Sanji went into full fledged denial mode, running away and avoiding all topics relating to green haired morons.

After a few weeks of succeeding in his task Zoro stalked him down and tried to hound him into confrontation, a task which left him with a foot shaped bruise on his chest. Despite the hostility he would show up at least once a week to try to get the blond to talk to him.

Things came to their tipping point when Sanji had spent about a month and a half ignoring him. Sanji was so frustrated he just attacked the moron with as much force as he could muster. Sometime during the fight Zoro kissed him and Sanji's brain, without his consent, decided fuck it, denial is for pathetic losers. From that moment on they were a thing. Sanji was never quite sure what to call them. Lovers sounded gross, boyfriends sounded too childish, partners was weird, significant others sounded too formal, they were just sort of "a thing" to him. Two people who just happened to be in love with each other. Once the denial and confusion was out of the was they were quite happy in their weird little way.

Sanji was lucky enough to have friends and family who didn't give a shit about who he was with, male or female. He could hardly imagine what it would be like to have parents or friends who were so astoundingly homophobic that he should have to hide this from them. It did not sound healthy at all. Who care who anyone else has sex with, honestly? There were people out there who married someone straight in order to hide who they are, that is just fucked up and it must be incredibly lonely. It seems like something that should not be happening in the modern world. And don't even start on those fucking pray away the gay people. They can all go fuck themselves.

Sanji sighed, religion was weird and he didn't get why people listened to some two thousand year old book. People did insanely stupid shit two hundred years ago, let alone two thousand. It was absurd to believe that these people somehow knew best. The more he thought about it the less sense it made. Ugh.. Things would be so much easier if America wasn't such a religious country. For fuck sake 42 percent of Americans don't believe in evolution, then another 31 percent believe a god guided evolution to the way it is today. Fucking insane, and this wasn't some fucking shitty survey taken by some shady company, it was a fucking gallop poll. Statistics could be seriously depressing sometimes.

Fuck the universe, he had to stop thinking about this before his head exploded.

XxxX

A/N: Off on a tangent again : ) my Christmas decorations are finally up because I'm calibrating Christmas today. My Christmas schedule is kind of fucked up this year.

Thanks.


	22. A Turbulent Childhood

Sanji was cleaning the house when he happened upon a VHS tape like some from of ancient, lost technology. In their house they had maybe ten tapes and their DVD player was also a VHS player. The DVD he found was shoved behind the tv stand underneath a pile of cords. He squinted at the little words on the front, they read The Little Mermaid.

That was a good childhood movie. Not that he would ever admit it but Sanji really loved that movie as a kid, he was struck by the sudden urge to see it again. As he carried the tape to the VHS player he felt very subconscious even though he knew that no one was home.

He stuck the tape into the machine and realized that he would have to actually rewind it. What a drag. While the movie moved quickly backward Sanji went to the kitchen to retrieve a candy cane. He was feeling lazy, as he was in his pajamas, and in need of peppermint.

Candy canes are rather odd. Legend has it that in the 1600s some church choir guy made sugar sticks to make kids shut up during church. Then in the 1900s candy canes took their current form as the hooked red and white candies we all know. The origin is a little fuzzy but there you go. Apparently the white symbolizes the Virgin birth and sinless life of Jesus and the red is his blood or something. Why are churches so obsessed with consuming Jesus' blood? They're like a bunch of vampires or something.

Fuck vampires, seriously, thought Sanji. What is up with them? Somehow the drink blood to stay alive but that shouldn't fucking work. Drinking blood would only separate out when you digest it like everything else, it wouldn't be added to your circulation. And obviously vampires shouldn't move at all as their hearts don't beat so they can't get oxygen rich blood to circulate their body.

Then there's the whole elongated teeth thing, which doesn't really makes sense because teeth don't grow out from the tip. Also in movies people always grew teeth from teeth that had been normal two seconds ago. Nope, makes no sense.

And then the living forever thing and bursting into flames in sunlight thing. The living forever thing could feasibly be possible if vampire teleomeres didn't get any shorter, like cancer cells, but who knows what they would look like. The burning to death and dying to a steak in the heart sounded more like magic stuff so there was really no point in tearing it apart.

Fuck, he was spacing out. By the time he was back in the living room the tape was done rewinding, it had only been watched halfway through. Sanji grabbed a fuzzy gray blanket and curled up with the curved end of the candy cane sticking out of his mouth.

As the movie played Sanji became more and more shocked about how messed up the story really was. He was also shocked at how short it was, the run time was only about ninety minutes. When he was little it seemed so long.

As a movie The Little Mermaid was pretty fucked up and it was only made in 1989, which was a long ass time ago but not too too long ago. It was weird because first off Ariel is only sixteen years old when this thing takes place. Second, she likes prince Eric just because she thinks he has a pretty face. Third, she confesses to her father that she is in love with Eric without ever even talking to him. Fourth, when she is given legs to become a human she has her voice taken away so she and the prince can't actually talk and get to know one another well. Fifth, this didn't pertain to the movie being messed up but why the fuck couldn't she just write what she wanted to say? She signed her name on the contract with Ursula so it's not like she can't write. Sixth, they spend literally three days together! Seriously! Seventh, Ariel gets married at sixteen to a guy she's known for three days.

It all seemed prettysexist, Sanji mused while he kicked the now deadly sharp candy cane end. He had managed to get it thin enough that it cut his tongue if he even touched the tip of it.

Candy canes could be serious weapons. Could one feasibly kill another person by stabbing them with a candy cane? In theory it sounded good but in reality the end of the peppermint stick would probably snap off. The best bet would be to make as much of the thing as possible sharp and then stabbing someone in the eye and hoping that it did enough damage to cause death. Then again it might just end up like a failed transorbital lobotomy, which could be just as bad.

Sanji mentally slapped himself. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. The chef thought he would probably like to be a mermaid... Merman, whatever. Having a fish tail sounded awkward at hell outside of the ocean and he really wasn't sure how they reproduced but it looked cool.

Really, if he thought about it, mermaids probably reproduced the same fish do; laying like a million eggs and then squirting sperm all over them. Super attractive for sure.

Sanji thought fish were pretty cool, actually. He liked to look at them, he liked to cook them, and he liked to eat them. Yum. He also had a very large collection of lucky stones. Lucky stones are actually not stones at all. They are the ear bone, otolith, of a freshwater drum, also known as a sheephead fish. They are small and flat with a "L" shaped groove on the top.

When he was really little he grew up on a lake. From what little he remembered, and from what Zeff told him, he knew that his parents were commercial walleye fishers on the Canadian side of the lake. He was on their boat when a sudden storm hit which wasn't necessarily uncommon, the weather changed very suddenly on the lake but in this instant it was like a change from day to night. The wind howled and rain pelted down hard on the water. The waves were huge, not extremely huge but huge for this particular lake and the boat was not built for this sort of punishment.

The relatively small boat bobbed precariously on the waves. Sanji remembered clenching the railing so tightly he was afraid his knuckles would split, he was terrified that they would end up another dot on the map of sunken ships hanging up in the living room. His parents rushed around, trying to do anything to keep afloat. In the distance there was a light, it was an United States coast guard boat who must have been patrolling the border.

A wave nearly knocked the boat sideways and while it was leaning another crashed down and knocked it completely over onto the other boat. Sanji screamed as it tipped water rushed under the door, his parents were up in the bridge while he was in the cabin. He had just enough sense to hold his breath when he opened the door and was blasted with dark water. He could see nothing, the shallow lake had been stirred by the storm causing the water become cloudy, it was never really clear. His life jacked dragged him upward while he kicked for his life. When he breached the surface thunder rumbled and he was again dragged under by a crashing wave.

He couldn't see either boat before he was dragged down. He was tossed around a few more times before he saw someone else in the water, a man with blond hair; Zeff, the coast guard who had come to their aid. The man was carrying about four life preservers and when the two came together two of the flotation devices were shoved over his head. They held onto one another to stay together, the waves were calming little by little but it was hardly noticeable to them. They swam in the direction of the nearest land mass they could see, a small island on the horizon. The whole time Sanji was crying for his parents, demanding that they go back but Zeff knew they were gone for good.

The waters had become calmer and the sky was beginning to clear. That was when Sanji noticed the blood trail following them. Zeff's leg had been caught when the boats collided, he refused to talk about it when Sanji pointed it out. Rationally Sanji knew there were no sharks, or even toothy fish in the water but his brain assured him that they were probably monsters beneath him following the blood while they swam in the open water.

They reached the island a few hours later, unluckily for them it was uninhabited. They spent six days on that island waiting to be rescued, Zeff gradually getting sicker from his wounded leg by the day, it wasn't bad enough that he wouldn't make it but it was pretty bad, and the two of them starving. Not to mention the lack of fresh water leading to them drinking lake water and getting violently sick with nothing but the water to throw back up.

When the coast guard finally found them they were taken by boat to a larger island life flighted to a hospital. Zeff had to have a below the knee amputation and Sanji was in limbo. He had no relatives to take him, he was a Canadian child, and he owed Zeff his life. Zeff insisted on adopting the little blond and he went through a lot of pain to make that happen. He made sure he ended up in The United States child care system until he was fit to adopt the kid himself. After a year of physical therapy he was deemed fit to adopt.

They stayed in in the area for two years before moving to the capital and starting up the Baratie. And the rest was history. Fuck, what a shitty childhood but Sanji was in a way glad that things happened they way they did. These events led him to this present and he was happy in this present.

XxxX

This got way more intense than I was anticipating. I'm calling bullshit on my own story, on the lake I'm thinking of I'm pretty sure the likelihood of a boat tipping is incredibly low. Fucking murky, polluted lake you are causing so many problems.

Thanks.


	23. Nostalgic Nonsense

One of the many magical things about the month of December was all the Christmas movies on tv. They were heavily laden with nostalgia.

It was dark out and Sanji and Zoro were eating in front of the television, something Sanji rarely condoned, watching A Year Without a Santa Claus. It was Sanji's favorite Christmas movie, he had watched it over the years far too many times to get excited about watching it but it still had a special place in his heart. What he was unwilling to admit was that he really mostly just liked the parts where Snowmiser and Hearmiser sing. He liked musical songs, it was a fatal flaw of his. He felt like he was fulfilling a stereotype by wanting to sing along. If only he lived in a world where people wouldn't think he was gay for liking musicals... Even if he kind of was.

Beside the conflicted blond Zoro sat, not really paying attention to what was going on. He never really watched Christmas specials as a kid and he didn't like them very much now but he didn't hate them either. The one Christmas movie he did watch was A Charlie Brown Christmas, he didn't like it much but he seemed to see it on every year. Whenever he heard the music he was hit by a massive wall of nostalgia.

The specials he really enjoyed were Harry Potter specials. Who couldn't like Harry Potter? Correction. What rational human being couldn't like Harry Potter? They were all great movies although the early ones were Zoro's favorites. He couldn't help but feel bad for the slytherins, though, J K Rowling did a pretty good job as painting them all as a bunch of assholes.

Zoro felt like he would probably be a griffindor, he was brave and loyal. All of his friends could probably be griffindors, although Nami seemed like more of a slytherin to him. Just as long as no one was a hufflepuff they would all be fine, no one wants to be a hufflepuff, they're the boring house. Zoro glanced over at Sanji who didn't seem to be paying attention to the tv either, and he was making a horrible grimace.

"What's wrong?" Zoro nudged him.

Sanji shook his head, "Nothing, I'm just thinking about musicals."

Zoro smirked, "What, thinking about running away and joining broadway?"

Sanji rolled his eyes, "Mmhm, no, I'm not William Shakespeare."

The marimo's eyebrows drew together, "Shakespeare ran away to join broadway?"

"No, dumbass, he left his family to become a writer in like the 1600s English version of Hollywood. Or maybe it was 1500s, I don't know he lived in both centuries."

"Well, followed his dream or whatever bullshit so good for him I guess," Zoro said very eloquently,such a way with words he had.

"Yeah well, he started off basically as one of those people who parks your car for you, except he parked horses. Then someone noticed his talent when he was editing plays or something like that."

Zoro made a face like he was during of boredom, "All your Shakespeare is making me bored, tell me something more interesting, blondie." He leaned in rather close to Sanji's face.

Sanji made no move to retreat or even acknowledge the lack of space, "Well, there is a little conspiracy theory that Shakespeare didn't write his plays at all. Supposedly someone else of more noble standing really wrote them and let him take the credit. Interesting enough?" He quirked a swirly brow.

Zoro leaned back thoughtfully, to Sanji's silent dismay.

"I like that," Zoro stated, "Shakespeare is boring as fuck and this makes him slightly interesting, I hope he really didn't write all those plays."

"He probably did write them but I guess it's fun to imagine he didn't." Sanji shifted to lay his head on Zoro's shoulder, "I don't think he was all bad but he may be a little out if date."

Zoro snorted, "You say that, but Romeo and Juliet made me want to stab my eyes out."

"Mmhm, how did I know you were going to say that. I suppose this is the part where you say 'it was never really love, it was lust' and I'm supposed to argue with you, right?"

"Sounds like something we should probably do, unless you wish to agree with me?"

"I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, there's more to it than that. It's a story about an impatient couple who take things far too quickly and don't think about the consequences. They die but in the end the families come together and that's what really matters."

"Oh god, I'm going to puke it's so sweet. Should I start confessing my undying love to you now because I'm so moved.  
>My bounty is as boundless as the sea,<br>My love as deep; the more I give to thee,  
>The more I have, for both are infinite." Zoro spoke dramatically.<p>

"Shut the fuck up, you dick. Why the fuck did you memorize something from a story you hate?"

He shrugged, "I had to memorize some lines in high school and somehow I still remember them."

Sanji groaned, "You're going to give me flashbacks of high school."

"Fuck, why did we have to read so much Shakespeare, and why is Romeo and Juliet so popular when it really sucks?"

"Are you saying that Shakespeare had written things that have not sucked?"

Zoro shrugged, "Maybe they weren't my favorites but Julius Cesar and Macbeth weren't so bad."

"Double, double toil and trouble;  
>Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." Sanji smiled, yes he did find Macbeth entertaining, "I'd go for the obvious and say et tu brute but fuck that. What, you're not a Hamlet fan?"<p>

"Nah, he and his mom had some weird thing going on. He defiantly had an et- an at- an- fuck it, you know what I mean."

"An Oedipus complex is what I think you mean," Sanji said in a haughty voice, "But you know, fair marimo, not even Oedipus had an Oedipus complex."

Zoro elbowed him, "Just stop talking, from this point of I shall no longer talk of Shakespeare or any of his works."

"What about The Nutcracker?" Sanji mused.

"Fuck that!" Zoro shouted, he had been forced to see The Nutcracker when he was younger and now be absolutely refused to go with Sanji.

Sanji Pouted slightly, "Well, I wouldn't know how bad it is because someone refuses to go with me and I'm not going alone." He sighed, "The only Nutcracker I've seen is the Barbie version."

"You've actually watched Barbie movies? Holy fuck, you are gay."

Sanji made a face, "I don't want to talk about it." He changed the subject, "How about the Canterbury Tales then?" Sanji asked quickly.

Zoro put his hands over his ears, "Shut the fuck up, seriously."

Sanji leaned in very close, their lips hardly touching, "But if you're very nice I'll let you take my maiden's head," he purred.

It was impossible to ignore the fucked up-ness of a line used to sound sexy when it was originally used in the Canterbury tales to describe a scene where a girls virginity is taken by force a la douchey knight, but all Zoro could manage was, "You lost your maiden's head a long time ago, cook."

Sanji cocked his head thoughtfully, "I guess you're right, either way have sex with me or get off the couch, shitty swordsman." It was a very easy choice to make. Not even a choice really.

XxxX

A/N: Nightmare Before Christmas is the best Christmas movie.

IMPORTANT - Okay, so early tomorrow I leave for a far away land and I will have limited internet access. Thus I will have to put up the last two chapters later today. If you are a good, honest person then you will wait to read those chapters until those days : )

Thanks.


	24. Birthday Bash

Sanji was preparing a huge bounty of food for a very very special occasion. Chopper was turning 24, which made Sanji feel like an old man. It seemed just yesterday that he was going off to med school, now he was a full fledged doctor working in an actual hospital. Where did the time go?

Everyone was currently out playing in the snow. Sanji could see them running around through the window like little snow goblins. The nights cuisine was rather on the sweet side to suit the doctor's taste. It was more of an early dinner because the crew had plans for later inthe night, unbeknownst to Chopper.

When the food was finished the chef called in all his crew mates and grieved for his once clean floor as they came charging in with their boots on. At least it was hardwood. The living room had white carpeting, which was stained to fuck. Never buy white carpeting, whoever had the house before them had made a terrible choice. It really, really bothered Sanji when people walked on any kind of carpeting with their shoes on. It just made his head want to explode, it didn't feel right.

Any normal birthday party would have gifts but Chopper's birthday was the day before Christmas so he always had his actual birthday party in the middle of summer, so it felt more like a party and less like Christmas.

Sanji's feast was devoured in an astoundingly short amount of time. Luffy was on the verge of going into a food coma when he remembered the evening's plans. At this remembrance he snapped out of his daze and declared, "Everyone to the car!"

Sanji smacked him on then head, "We can't all fit in one car, moron. I'm taking Chopper, Zoro, and Luffy. Robin is taking Franky, Ussop, and Nami." They had decided by picking names out of a hat... It wasn't a real hat though, Zoro took off his shirt and cupped it so that they could draw names out. Sanji wished he had a top hat, then he could be a proper gent or Abraham Lincoln, but he was cool too. Anyway, it seemed Robin got the less noisy pick.

Chopper was the only one who looked confused, "What's going on, guys?"

"Don't you worry about it, Chopper, you'll see soon enough," said Nami sweetly as she made for the door.

Everyone loaded into the cars and made for the highway. The car ride for Sanji's car was far more chaotic than Robin's. The ride for them mostly consisted of horribly loud music, provided by Luffy, and Sanji trying do to crash the car while he screamed at him.

They were headed toward the city, to an unknown location the origin of which Chopper realized when they pulled into the parking lot. The doctor's eyes widened.

"Are we going to see the zoo lights?" He asked in an excited voice. It was either that or the water park, which was closed for the winter. Every year in the winter time the zoo put up amazing Christmas light displays and Chopper had never seen them.

Sanji grinned as they pulled in behind Robin. Chopper leaped from the car and was nearly vibrating with excitement.

"Ready to go?" Zoro asked, the excited doctor expectantly. Chopper let out a squeal of joy as Luffy grabbed him by the arm and hauled him ahead. The walk to the gate was not long because they had to run to keep up with Luffy.

It didn't cost too much to get in because everyone had a zoo membership for those numerous occasions when Luffy made them come. There weren't too many people, probably because it was Christmas Eve. Although, the place was far from deserted, thus it was very important that Sanji hold Zoro's hand while they were there. He was not going to have the marimo getting lost in a sea of children. Besides, what good were his hands doing if they weren't occupied.

Once they passed the gates they were met by a dazzling sight. The lake directly in front of the entrance was surrounded by an array of colorful trees shining so brightly they burned the retinas of this who dared look directly at them. Chopper's eyes sparkled in delight as he stared at the sight with childlike wonder.

Luffy rushed them ahead to see the animals, they first went right toward the polar bear. The path was shrouded in a tunnel of lights and glowing trees like some futuristic space tube. The polar bear was actually out playing in the water. She was gnawing on her floating barrel when they walked up. She looked very fitting playing in the snow like that.

Not far from that the brown bears were fighting in their cage. Not fighting fighting, play fighting, which was still pretty terrifying when they were up against the glass.

The group passed some of the less interesting exhibits quickly; the sleeping lions, the hiding dogs or hyenas or whatever they were, the ones that generally did nothing. While they were walking to the elephant place the lynx jumped against its fence and meowed at them. It was pretty heart meltingly adorable.

The elephants and rhinos were the same as ever, as there the lanky giraffes. Zoro nudged Sanji and told him he should probably break his family out of captivity when they were looking at the giraffes. Fucking asshole.

Luffy loved the monkeys he somehow always managed to rile them up while they were in the monkey building. Sanji wasn't sure how he did it but it was hilarious and slightly scary having all those monkeys howling and jumping around like that. They were then ushered out of the building by an employee.

They of course had to stop and take a picture with every metal stature they walked by. Those things were the fucking best. There was the giant stingray, the polar bears, the hammerhead shark, the manatees, the wary hogs... Etc. They were amazing to climb on. In the summer they would get so hot it would nearly burn your skin to touch them, now they were so slippery it was a fight to get on top of them.

When they passed the kids area it made Sanji's heart ache a little bit. The kids area was one of those big play areas with all the tubes, bridges, and caterpillar slides. When Sanji was a kid he fucking loved those things to death, not they he got to play on them often but every once and a while at a birthday party or something he would run and crawl through them like it was nobody's business. But alas he gained his height early on and could no longer go on the kids play area. Sometimes he dreamed of a massive tube system that he could spend hours getting lost in. If he were rich that is what he would build.

They made their way through the zoo at a leisurely pace, admiring both the lights and the animals. Their final stop was to the reindeer.

Chopper loved the reindeer, they were quite literally his favorite. If he were an animal he would want to be a reindeer. Honestly, Sanji always thought the reindeer always looked very unhappy being stuck in their little cage like that but whatever made him happy. They stayed until Chopper was ready to go, it was his birthday after all.

As Chopper left the zoo he was sad to go but exhausted and his feet were killing him. On the ride home he passed out next to Luffy making the drive peaceful for Sanji and Zoro who enjoyed the silence while it lasted. They rushed home to drop everyone off, wouldn't want to keep Santa waiting on them.

XxxX

A/N: Happy birthday to Chopper :D the zoo is fun but I've never been to the lights.

Thanks.


	25. Until Next Year

It was rather early when Sanji woke up, maybe some small part of him was childishly excited for Christmas Day. He lay there on his back listening to Zoro's even breathing, just thinking. He didn't even know what exactly he was thinking about, it was a sort of half asleep musing. It was warm and comfortable and he felt like he was sunken into the mattress.

At ten Sanji decided that it was time for the sleeping marimo to awaken but because it was Christmas he probably shouldn't wake him up in a painful manner. Sanji wracked his brain for a non dickish way to wake him up, it was shockingly difficult. He decided to go for the slightly annoying way of waking him up. The blond blew air softly across Zoro's exposes neck in hopes that he would maybe slap himself awake. No such luck, he just shifted slightly and settled again.

Try again. This time Sanji lifted his head slightly to blow on Zoro's ear. This got more of a reaction, the green haired man scowled in his sleep and unconsciously slapped a hand over Sanji's mouth. Sanji considered biting the fingers covering his lips but decided that he did not want to be punched in his beautiful face, so instead he brushed the hand aside and thought harder.

While he was thinking he ran his eyes over Zoro's sleeping face. He looked so much more pleasant while he slept, probably because his face muscles were relaxed. Face muscles were pretty creepy actually, especially when you look at a muscle model from the side and you see their weird little ear hole. Ugh gross, it was like a blow hole on the side of the head.

Fuck, whale skeletons were so weird and evil looking, the same with dolphin skeletons. Whales are pretty astounding any way you look at it. They are so big that a person could crawl around in their heart, at least some are, but they still come down to the same basic unit if life as everything else. Cells.

Sanji pushed the thoughts aside for the moment. He decided, the hell with this, and shook Zoro gently. The swordsman's expressing transformed into its typical scowl as he blinked his eyes open.

"Morning, dear," Sanji teased lazily.

"Why did you wake me up, fucking..." He trailed off, unable to formulate an entire sentence properly.

"Because it's Christmas and we have to celibate and shit. Merry fucking Christmas, by the way."

Zoro's eyes rolled shut again, "Fuck Christmas, I don't want to get up," Zoro moaned, pressing his face to his pillow.

"People will start coming over at eleven, we have to get up."

"Fuck that, I'm going to stay here and sleep forever. Why do they always have to come over here anyway?"

"Because our house is big enough and I have maximum kitchen comfort. If you're not getting up then I am." Sanji made a move to get up but was pulled back a very heavy swordsman. "Ugh, let me go, asshole."

"Nope," Zoro sighed heavily into the blond's pretty hair. Sanji really did have the prettiest hair, it was soft, shiny, and never failed to conceal half of his beautiful, asymmetrical face. It was shocking at first to see Sanji's face full on, it sort of looked like his face was reflected or something, like it wasn't really real.

"If you don't let me up then I won't be ready for everyone." Damn him for making it so hard to get up.

"Fine," Zoro said begrudgingly, "But I'm not getting up."

"Yeah, well what use wouldyou be anyway." Sanji stuck his tongue out as he was released. He didn't even have the effort to put his clothes on yet so he just started cooking in his pajamas. Almost everyone would turn up half dressed anyway, so it didn't really matter. Although, Sanji would defiantly get himself together before they came over.

By the time everyone was there Sanji was fully dressed in one of his more casual suits. Can a suit be casual? On Sanji a suit could be casual, according to Zoro but what the fuck did he know.

Luffy seemed even more energetic than usual, which was a pretty big issue when it came to him destroying and or knocking things over. He was a bit of a fire hazard.

Presents were exchanged before they ate. Presents didn't have the same glory as they did as a young child but they still brought joy to everyone all the same. Their presents were all quite fitting, Zoro received a rather alarming amount of alcohol, much to his pleasure. That alcohol would be put to good use in due time.

In the mean time Sanji had an amazing idea. The guy who ran the rollerblading rink not far away owed him a few favors so he made a few calls and boom, they had themselves a rollerblading rink to themselves. It would have been a bit more Christmasy if it had been an ice skating rink but the nearest ice skating place was nearly an hour away.

Everyone seemed happy to be going to the place, even though it wasn't exactly the traditional thing to do. They ate a brief lunch and ran off. Because no one else was there they got to use non shitty songs and have the disco and uv lights on the whole time. Luffy was hilariously bad at staking, it was a good thing he wasn't fragile. Sometimes Sanji swore he had to be made of rubber.

Sanji was fairly good at skating, he could do all the best moves. This was good because he and Zoro managed to get into a fight while they were on the rink over something fucking stupid. Because they were wearing shoes with wheels when Sanji attacked Zoro fell flat on his back. Unfortunately he grabbed Sanji by the ankle and yanked him down as well so they would both be bruised tomorrow. Great.

The discoing was cool though, disco always brought out the dork in Sanji. He was totally jamming as he skated circles around his friends.

They stayed for three hours before heading back to Sanji and Zoro's to fuck around until dinner. They had waited long enough for Sanji's delicious cooking.

After a feast of mash potatoes, ham, and an assortment of fancy foods everyone proceeded to get fabulously drunk. It's really the best way to spend Christmas.

They very, very loudly and very badly played Guitar Hero. Sanji had the best voice and Brook was amazing with the guitar but other than that it was pretty terrible. Ussop was smacked in the face by one of Luffy's drumsticks and it was decided that they shouldn't play anymore.

They then moved on to Cards Against Humanity, which Robin was infinitely better at than everyone else for some reason.

By the end of the night Chopper had passed out in the middle of the floor, Usopp and Luffy had gone back to badly playing Guitar Hero, Robin and Nami were in the middle of a philosophical conversation, Franky was over by the Christmas tree taking selfies, and Sanji was in Zoro's lap with his tongue down his throat. So it was a pretty typical Christmas for them really. Next year would hopefully be just as amazing.

XxxX

A/N: Thanks for reading all this shit, guys. You are the best and it was fun. I guess I'll see you next time because I've always started like four things because I get too excited about ideas. Also, merry Christmas or happy Hanukkah or whatever holiday you celebrate : )

Live long and prosper.


	26. Happy New Year

New Years wasn't particularly special this year. Luffy was off visiting Shanks, wherever he was. Nami was going to see her sister, who lived a state away. Chopper was going to his grandma's. Ussop was spending time with his girlfriend, Kaya. Robin was dragging Franky around the city. Sanji and Zoro were staying home.

Because it was just the tow of them Sanji broke out his super fancy alcohol. Celebrating by themselves wasn't nearly as exciting as celebrating with everyone but they did their best.

It was warm enough out that they could be outside without freezing to death. What bezoar weather patterns they were having this year.

They two of them laid out on the deck looking to the stars, which were looking back at them. The sky was dark, as it was nearly midnight. There weren't many clouds in the sky but it was not totally clear. Earlier the sunset had been a rather strange shade of purple, casting everything in a weird light.

Overhead the stars twinkled. They lived far enough from the city that they could see a great deal of stars but it was nothing like out west where the stars littered the sky. One light was moving steadily across the sky, blinking as it went; alone airplane. Sanji would have rather liked to believe that it was a UFO and that aliens were really circling overhead but his rational brain was telling him that was absurd, which was kind of sad honestly.

Sanji himself had been on a few plane rides, they weren't so bad. The last one he had taken was up to Canada for Zeff and some business stuff. He had to take a connecting flight, which was slightly irritating but not so bad.

He always felt bad for the airport staff, their job much be very boring. Because it is so boring and routine it does at times make them rude when they deal with people's problems, they have become desensitized. Things like losing luggage seemed like more of a hassle then something to panic over. The airport seemed to have a lot of funny rules too. Like the couple being verified in front of Sanji had their luggage stuck with a different airline and they couldn't just go get it because of some weird policy. A lot of strange things like that. So yeah, the TSA were irritating but they were only doing their jobs.

The flying wasn't so bad though. Sure, there were a lot of people but from his experience they weren't terrible to deal with.

Take off was sort of fun. There was the build up of tension while the plane was turning and then the super fast drive into take off. And of course the looking down at all the little buildings as they grew smaller and smaller. Or to see the tippy tops of skyscrapers breaching the clouds. It was especially cool at night to see all the city lights illuminating the sky.

Sanji had no fear of flying, he put his faith in the hands of the pilot and the engineers who built the contraption. It really was a grand invention. Planes didn't look like they should be flying but through the art of physics they somehow managed.

The pressure change was a bitch, all those poor popping ears. Also before his second flight left they were delayed for forty minutes for a rather... crazy reason. One of the seats were broken so they had to remove it because of some nonsense and they had to wait on the maintenance team to sign some paperwork on it. Ah, bureaucracy, what dull torment.

The sanitary condition of the vessel, however, was debatable. Many different people rode the things and there was really only so much you could do. Sanji thought it was probably better than a subway or a public school bus.

Busses were revolting, they were dirty and they were grimy. Sanji rode the damn things for eleven years of his life and he never wanted go he on one again.

He sighed, if everything were perfect they wouldn't need annoying airplane policy's. But the world wasn't perfect, it was annoyingly imperfect.

Sanji sighed heavily. Another year gone, they seemed to be passing by exponentially faster. That was a thing that grown ups always talked about; how unkind time was. He cringed at the idea that he was somehow becoming an old man but then that seemed an awful long time away.

It was strange to think about time. Sanji assumed that it had always been a thing before he was born but he could never be totally sure and when he did eventually die he assumed that things would go on without him but again there was no way to tell for sure. Weird.

The moon was shining down full blast, it wasn't full but it was rather large. Sanji always thought that it looked like a big jellyfish or something floating up in the sky like that.

Suddenly a moth flew down and dive bombed Sanji's face. He swatted away the offending insect with a wave of his hand. Fucking moths, they fuck do they even want. Actually Sanji had an amazing idea for a graphic novel centered on moths. It would be about a super serious crew of space moths in a junky old ship and their goal would be to fly into the sun, because no moth could resist a bright light like that.

He imagined that the artwork would be super detailed and serious looking and the journey would be long and perilous. Then, at the very end they would just burn up on the surface of the sun. Mission complete.

There was something to that. Dying at the height of happiness, not flying into the sun. That would be stupid. Sanji hoped that he wouldn't be one of those people who lived to be like one hundred and ten or something. After age eighty things seemed to go down hill so he would rather live to like eighty five or somewhere around there and not in some shitty hospital hooked up to a machine either. Maybe when he got that old he would have to have an "accident".

But that was a long, long way off and it did no good to think about it now, maybe tomorrow he would be hit by a car and all that planning would be for naught.

2015 was what he should be thinking about. Hopefully this new year would not suck and a lot of amazing things would happen. Then next year would be the year that the ten year or fourteen year cicada would come up out of the ground. He could never remember how long they remained dormant but he liked squishing them and there would be a lot next year. They would make it sound like aliens were invading, that's what it sounded like last time.

Ugh, Sanji hated that he was born at the start of a new hundred years. In the future they would look back and the beginning of the century would feel like an absurdly long time ago. Then again that would happen no matter what time period he was born in.

Sanji checked his watch. One minute to midnight. He looked over to Zoro, who was asleep. Sanji elbowed him awake.

"We have one minute to midnight, any last words for the year 2014?" He asked, glancing inside at the tv where the ball was getting ready to drop.

"Yeah, fuck you, I'm going to the future."

"We're all constantly going to the future, smart ass."

"Maybe, but we are all constantly living in the past because of the amount of time it takes the human body to process stimuli."

"Shut the fuck up."

The countdown began, the last ten seconds to revel in the exciting time that was 2014.

The cheering came loud and clear from the tv speakers. As was according to tradition Sanji leaned over and gave Zoro a kiss on the mouth.

"Happy new year, marimo," he mumbled before his eyes turned back to the glittering void of space.

XxxX

A/N: Wasn't going to do this but two four hour plane rides gave me a lot of time. I guess it was worth it though because Mexico is a pretty cool place. Can't wait to get home, connecting flight and all that jazz.

Happy New Year, hope this new year is a good one.


End file.
